DESPOTISM  IN  AMERICA : 

AN   INQUIRY 


INTO 


THE  NATURE,  RESULTS,  AND  LEGAL  BASIS 


SLAVE-HOLDING  SYSTEM 


IN   THE    UNITED    STATES. 


RICHARD    HILDRETH, 

ATJTHOB  OF  THE  HISTORY  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES,  THEOBY  OP 
POLITICS,  WHITE  SLAVE,  ETC. 


BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED  BY  JOHN  P.   JEWETT  AND  COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND,    OHIO: 
JEWETT,    PROCTOR    &    WORTHINGTON. 

NEW  YORK :  SHELDON,  LAMPORT  &  BLAKEMAN. 
1854. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1854,  by 

JOHN  P.  JKWKTT  AND  COMPANY, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


STEREOTYPED   AT  THE 
BOSTON     STEREOTYPE      FOUNDRY. 


*"  The  impression  which  has  gone  abroad  of  the  weakness 
of  the  South,  as  connected  with  the  slave-question,  exposes 
us  to  such  constant  attacks,  has  done  us  so  much  injury, 
and  is  calculated  to  produce  such  infinite  mischiefs,  that  I 
embrace  the  occasion  presented  by  the  remarks  of  the  gen 
tleman  from  Massachusetts,  to  declare  that  we  are  ready  to 
meet  the  question  promptly  and  fearlessly.  It  is  one  from 
ivhich  we  are  not  disposed  to  shrink,  IN  WHATEVER  FORM,  OR 

UNDER  WHATEVER    CIRCUMSTANCES  IT    MAY  BE    PRESSED  UPON 

us.  We  are  ready  to  make  up  the  issue  as  to  the  influence 
of  slavery  on  individual  and  national  character — on  the 
prosperity  and  greatness  either  of  the  United  States,  or 
particular  States.  Sir,  when  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  pub 
lic  opinion,  on  this  charge  of  slavery,  we  can  stand  up  with 
conscious  rectitude,  plead  not  guilty,  and  put  ourselves 
upon  God  and  our  country." — Speech  of  ROBERT  Y. 
HAYNE,  of  South  Carolina,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Webster,  deliv 
ered  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  Jan.  21,  1830. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION Pfl86 

CHAPTER  FIRST. 

THE   RELATION   OF   MASTER   AND   SLAVE. 

SECT.  I. — Origin  of  Slavery 35 

SECT.  II. — General  idea  of  a  Slave-holding  Community    ....  36 

SECT.  III. — Empire  claimed  by  the  American  Slave  Master  ...  38 

SECT.  IV. — Means  of  enforcing  the  Master's  Empire 41 

SECT.  V. — Methods  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Slaves    ...  48 
SECT.  VI. — The  treatment  of  American  Slaves  considered  as  ani 
mals  56 

SECT.  VII. — The  treatment  of  American  Slaves  considered  as  men  62 
SECT.  VIII. — Wealth  and  luxury  of  the  Masters,  as  it  affects  the 

condition  of  Slaves 74 

SECT.  IX. — Improvement  in  physical  condition,  as  it  affects  the 

condition  of  servitude 77 

CHAPTER  SECOND. 

POLITICAL  RESULTS   OP   THE   SLAVE-HOLDING  SYSTEM. 

SECT.  I — General  view  of  the  subject 83 

SECT.  II. — Slavery  as  it  affects  the  security  of  the  privileged  class    86 
SECT.  III. — Slavery  as  it  affects  the  liberty  of  the  privileged  class     92 

SECT.  IV. — Slavery  in  its  influence  upon  Equality 96 

SECT.  V. — Education  in  the  Slave-holding  States 104 

SECT.V! — Military  strength  of  the  Slave-holding  States    ....  107 

CHAPTER   THIRD. 

ECONOMICAL  RESULTS   OF   THE    SLAVE-HOLDING    SYSTEM. 

SECT.  I. — Effect  of  Slavery  upon  the  Sources  of  Wealth  .     .    .     .111 
SECT.  II. — Slavery  as  it  affects  the  amount  of  Capital  required  for 

industrious  undertakings 119 

SECT.  Ill — Agriculture  in  the  Slave-holding  States 123 


VI  CONTENTS. 

SECT.  IV. — Manufactures  and  Commerce  in  the  Slave-holding 
States 132 

SECT.  V. — Instability  and  uncertainty  of  values  in  the  Slave-hold 
ing  States 134 

SECT.  VI. — Comparative  Progress  and  Prosperity  of  the  Tree  and 
of  the  Slave-holding  States 138 

CHAPTER   FOURTH. 

PERSONAL  RESULTS   OP   THE   SLAVE-HOLDING-SYSTEM. 

SECT.  I. — Personal  effects  of  Slavery  npon  the  privileged  class     .  142 
SECT.  II. — Personal  effects  of  Slavery  upon  the  unprivileged  class    157 
SECT.  III. — Points  of  diversity  in  the  personal  character  of  the 
privileged  and  unprivileged  class 164 

CHAPTER  FIFTH. 

LEGAL  BASIS   OF  THE   SLAVE-HOLDING   SYSTEM. 

SECT.  I.  — Preliminary  observations 169 

SECT.  II. — Slavery  as  a  Colonial  Institution 177 

SECT.  III. — Slavery  in  the  States  and  under  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion  219 

SECT.  IV.— The  Fugitive  Act  of  1850 253 

APPENDIX  .  .    304 


INTRODUCTION. 


It  has  been  said,  and  is  often  repeated,  that  the 
United  States  of  America  are  trying  a  great  social  ex 
periment,  upon  the  result  of  which  hangs  the  future 
fate  not  of  America  only,  but  to  a  certain  extent,  of 
all  mankind. 

The  consequences  likely  to  flow  from  the  success  or 
failure  of  this  experiment,  are  doubtless  exaggerated ; 
for  those  universal  laws  which  regulate  the  feelings 
and  the  actions  of  men,  will  ultimately  produce  their 
necessary  effects,  in  spite  of  narrow  systems  of  policy 
and  morals,  founded  upon  the  success  or  failure  of 
any  single  experiment. 

But  whatever  we  may  think  of  its  probable  conse 
quences,  however  fancy  may  magnify,  or  reason  may 
diminish  them,  the  experiment  itself  is  a  great  one. 
It  is  in  fact  far  more  complicated  and  more  critical,  and 
therefore  greater  and  more  interesting,  than  it  is  com 
monly  represented. 

The  American  experiment  is  usually  described,  as 
purely  an  experiment  of  democracy ;  an  attempt  to 
establish  a  perfect  equality  of  political  rights;  an  es 
say  towards  the  equal  distribution  among  all  the 
members  of  the  community,  o£  freedom,  property, 
knowledge,  social  advantages,  and  those  other  good 
things  which  make  up  the  mass  of  human  happiness. 
And  this  experiment — as  we  are  assured  by  every 
writer,  native,  or  foreign,  who  has  touched  upon  the 
subject,  owing  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the 
country,  is  carried  on  to  the  greatest  possible  advan- 


:  /.   CTESPOTISM 


tage,  not  being  compelled  to  encounter  a  multitude  of 
hostile  influences,  by  which  such  an  undertaking,  any 
where  else,  would  be  most  vigorously  opposed. 

This  is  not  a  true  representation  of  the  case.  If  in 
certain  parts  of  the  American  Union,  the  experiment 
of  Democracy  be  steadily  and  quietly  pursued,  and 
with  an  influence  and  a  feeling  in  its  favor  which  have 
at  length  become  predominant,  in  certain  other  parts  of 
the  country  it  is  quite  overshadowed,  and  is  reduced 
to  creep  pale  and  sickly  on  the  ground,  by  another  ex 
periment,  less  talked  about,  less  celebrated,  but  not 
the  less  real  or  important,  to  wit,  the  experiment  of 
Despotism. 

The  Northern.  States  of  the  Union  are  unquestion 
able  Democracies,  and  every  day  they  are  verging 
nearer  and  nearer  towards  the  simple  idea  and  theo 
retic  perfection  of  that  form  of  government.  The 
Southern  States  of  the  Union,  though  certain  demo 
cratic  principles  are  to  be  found  in  their  constitutions 
and  their  laws,  are  in  no  modern  sense  of  the  word 
entitled  to  the  appellation  of  Democracies  :  They  are 
Aristocracies;  and  aristocracies  of  the  sternest  and 
most  odious  kind.  Property,  and  all  the  rights,  ad 
vantages  and  enjoyments  which  the  laws  bestow,  are 
limited  to  certain  families  and  their  descendants.  Cer 
tain  other  families  and  their  olfspring,  to  the  latest 
generation,  are  not  only  deprived  of  all  political  priv 
ileges  and  social  advantages,  but  they  are  the  hered 
itary  subjects,  servants,  bondsmen  of  the  privileged 
class.  Every  man  of  the  privileged  order  who  is  pos 
sessed  of  any  property  at  all,  is  apt  to  own  at  least 
one  slave ;  if  he  is  rich,  he  may  own  a  thousand ;  but 
whether  one  or  a  thousand,  of  those  he  does  own,  the 
laws  create  him  with  but  a  single  slight,  and  in  fact 
merely  nominal  exception,  the  absolute  master,  lord 
and  despot.  In  their  relation  towards  each  other,  the 
members  of  the  privileged  class  are  nominally  equal  ; 
and  in  that  aspect,  it  may  happen  that  the  lord  of  a 
plantation  and  five  hundred  slaves,  shall  be  a  great 
stickler  for  liberty  and  equality.  But  the  liberty  and 


.IN    AMERICA. 

equality  for  which  he  contends,  is  wholly  confined  to 
the  privileged  order ;  and  the  total  subjection  and 
eternal  servitude  of  the  unprivileged  class  is  consid 
ered  a  matter  of  course,  a  first  principle,  a  fixed  and 
established  ordinance,  as  inevitable  and  as  incapable 
of  alteration,  as  the  laws  of  nature. 

It  is  evident  then,  how  complicated  is  the  American 
experiment.  If  the  democratical  part  of  it,  has  hith 
erto  been  pursued  in  silence  and  quiet,  and  with  such 
apparent  success  that  the  admirers  of  Democracy 
have  been  ready  to  cry  out  that  the  problem  is  already 
solved ; — that  quiet  and  silence  have  been  merely  ac 
cidental  ;  that  success  has  been  only  a  progress  which 
was  comparatively  speaking,  but  slightly  opposed; 
and  it  is  but  now  that  Democracy  and  Despotism  face 
to  face,  like  Gabriel  and  the  Arch-enemy,  make  ready 
for  a  desperate  and  dreadful  struggle.  The  prepara 
tion,  the  courage,  the  arms,  the  loftiness  of  soul  were 
not  on  the  part  of  the  "  angelic  squadron"  alone : — 

On  t'  other  side,  Satan  alarm' d 

Collecting  all  his  might,  dilated  stood 
Like  Teneriffe,  or  Atlas,  unremoved. 
His  stature  reached  the  sky,  and  on  his  crest 
Sat  horror  plum'  d ;  nor  wanted  in  his  grasp 
What  seem'd  both  spear  and  shield. — 

The  struggle  that  impends  is  of  a  nature  to  shake 
the  country  to  the  centre,  and  to  end,  if  we  believe 
the  prophecies  of  our  southern  friends,  in  civil  com 
motions,  infuriated  hostilities,  and  savage  war. 

So  it  may  be.  The  event  is  in  their  power.  Let 
them  be  wise  in  time.  The  balance  of  justice  is 
stretched  across  the  sky, — and  is  it  not  their  scale  that 
kicks  the  beam  ?  Let  them  look  up  and  read  their  lot 
in  that  celestial  sign,  and  know  themselves,  how  light, 
how  weak,  if  they  resist.  Even  the  arch-fiend  cared 
not  to  struggle  against  inevitable  fate,  and  fled  a  strife 
in  which  he  could  but  suffer. 

That  heterogeneous   mixture  of  aristocracies  and 


10  DESPOTISM 

democracies,  which  makes  up  the  American  Union ; 
that  strange  compound  of  liberty  and  despotism,  which 
pervades  the  laws  of  so  many  of  the  States,  and  lurks 
demurely,  in  the  federal  constitution ;  such  hostile  and 
repulsive  elements  having  been  so  long  quietly  in  con 
tact  without  producing  an  explosion,  it  has  thence 
been  argued,  and  believed,  that  they  might  always  re 
main  so.  But  those  who  reason  thus,  have  not  well 
considered  the  history  of  the  American  States,  nor  the 
kind  of  progress  which  Democracy  has  hitherto  made. 

The  dispute  which  severed  the  colonies  from  Great 
Britain,  gave  rise  to  constitutions  in  the  northern 
States  of  the  confederacy,  which  acknowledged  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  the  leading  principles  of  liberty 
and  equality ;  principles  which  before  hardly  had  an 
existence,  except  in  the  speculations  of  a  few  political 
theorists.  In  no  part  of  the  country,  were  the  funda 
mental  theorems  of  this  modern  system  of  policy,  more 
generally  received  or  more  warmly  maintained,  than 
in  the  New  England  States,  where  the  equal  distribu 
tion  of  property  seemed  to  open  the  way  for  the  easy 
introduction  of  a  purely  democratical  system. 

But  property  is  not  the  only  source  of  political  pow 
er.  From  the  earliest  settlement  of  those  States,  the 
Clergy  had  always  exercised  a  predominant  influence. 
They  formed  a  distinct  order,  acting  together  with 
decision  and  promptitude,  and  monopolizing  all  the 
learning  and  no  small  share  of  the  active  talent  of  the 
community.  The  mass  of  the  people,  though  all  could 
read, — an  inestimable  accomplishment,  and  under  fa 
vorable  circumstances,  capable  in  itself  of  becoming 
the  foundation  of  the  most  liberal  knowledge, — were 
yet  extremely  ignorant ;  for  they  had  no  book  but  the 
bible,  and  for  the  most  part  they  relied  upon  their  re 
ligious  teachers  with  a  submissive  and  superstitious 
dependance,  for  such  expositions  of  its  contents  as  they 
saw  fit  to  give.  In  this  state  of  the  case,  the  power 
which  the  clergy  exercised  was  very  great.  It  was 
however  for  the  most  part  a  moral  power,  a  power  not 
over  the  bodies,  but  over  the  minds  of  men,  and  of 


IN    AMERICA.  11 

course,  it  was  least  felt  ly  those  who  yielded  to  it  the 
most  implicit  submission.  Some  harsh  acts  of  perse 
cution  and  punishment  were  occasionally  dealt  out  to 
such  insubordinate  persons  as  were  bold  enough  to 
think  for  themselves,  or  to  question  the  infallible  and 
divine  authority  of  the  "  standing  order."  But  in 
general,  that  veneration  which  the  "  ministers"  claim 
ed,  was  spontaneously  yielded,  and  the  power  thus 
conferred  was  judiciously  fortified  by  being  shared 
with  such  of  the  laymen  as  most  excelled  in  shrewd 
ness,  ambition,  and  spiritual  gifts. 

The  Revolution,  and  those  questions  of  constitu 
tional  law  to  which  it  gave  rise,  and  more  yet,  those 
extensive  and  iniquitous  fluctuations  of  property  which 
the  paper  money  system  produced,  raised  into  conse 
quence  another  body  of  men,  superior  to  the  clergy  in 
active  talent ;  almost  their  equals  in  learning  ;  and  if 
they  were  not  regarded  with  the  same  affectionate 
awe,  yet  both  feared  and  respected  by  the  people. 
These  were  the  Lawyers. 

This  new  order  did  not  hazard  its  influence  nor 
waste  its  strength  in  a  struggle  for  power,  with  the 
clergy.  On  the  contrary,  the  clergy  and  the  lawyers 
soon  formed  an  intimate  union  ;  and  though  these  lat 
ter  were  sometimes  a  little  wanting  in  respect  for  the 
theological  dogmas,  and  the  austere  morality  of  their 
allies,  these  deficiencies  of  faith  and  practice  were 
more  than  made  up  for,  by  the  zeal  and  subtlety 
with  which  they  defended  the  legal  privileges  of  the 
clergy,  and  labored  to  uphold  their  influence  and  au 
thority. 

This  double  hierarchy  of  law  and  divinity,  long 
maintained  a  predominating  influence  over  the  yeo 
manry  of  New  England.  Bred  up  on  their  farms  in 
the  simplest  way,  and  with  a  deep  reverence  for  reli 
gion  and  the  law,  a  reverence  easily  and  naturally 
transferred  to  the  clergy  and  the  lawyers  ;  depending 
upon  the  pulpit  for  their  weekly  supply  of  knowledge 
and  opinions,  or  if  they  read  a  newspaper, — and 
American  newspapers  in  those  times  were  but  small 


12  DESPOTISM 

affairs — choosing  such  an  one  as  the  minister  recom 
mended  ;  the  Legislature  filled  with  lawyers,  whose 
superior  information,  eloquence  and  adroitness,  put 
every  thing  in  their  power ;  the  judges,  secure  in  the 
tenure  of  their  office,  and  the  profound  respect  with 
which  it  was  regarded,  contributing  by  their  decisions, 
to  -uphold  a  system  of  which  they  formed  a  part ; 
thus  beset,  hemmed  in,  controlled  and  over-awed,  all 
the  weaker  spirits  and  more  submissive  tempers,  that 
is  to  say,  the  mass  of  the  community,  cowered  and 
submitted  to  a  power,  so  boldly  claimed,  so  vigorously 
enforced,  and  exercised  on  the  part  of  those  who  held 
it,  with  a  serious  and  sincere  belief  that  superior 
knowledge,  virtue  and  capacity  justly  entitled  them 
to  pre-eminent  authority. 

But  notwithstanding  this  moral  oligarchy  to  which 
New  England  was  subjected,  the  spirit  of  democracy 
had  nestled  in  the  bosoms  of  her  people ;  and  cherished 
by  degrees  into  energy  and  strength,  it  presently  be 
gan  to  plume  its  wings,  and  to  make  ready  for  assert 
ing  its  just  dominion. 

The  history  of  the  contest  in  New  England,  be 
tween  Democracy  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  priestly 
and  legal  alliance  on  the  other,  has  never  yet  been 
written.  It  is  not  adorned  with  any  of  those  palpable 
acts,  those  scenes  of  devastation  and  slaughter,  which 
have  hitherto  formed  the  chief  topics  of  historic  nar 
ration  ;  and  though  a  most  violent  and  bitter  struggle, 
so  little  has  it  attracted  the  attention  of  political  wri 
ters,  that  the  progress  of  American  Democracy,  thus 
far,  has  been  generally  described  as  quiet,  silent  and 
almost  unresisted. 

To  one,  who  from  the  the  array  of  the  combatants, 
had  divined  the  probable  termination  of  the  conflict, 
the  speedy  discomfiture  of  the  democratical  party 
would  have  appeared  inevitable.  Behind  the  legal 
and  clerical  champions  who  proudly  led  the  van  of  the 
opposing  forces,  there  followed  a  goodly  host,  including 
by  far  the  most  respectable,  and  apparently  the  most 
worthy  portions  of  society.  The  wealthy,  almost  to 


IN    AMERICA.  13 

a  man,  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the  established  order  of 
things,  which  having  made  them  rich,  in  their  estima 
tion,  could  not  but  be  good.  Besides,  their  wealth 
enabled  them  to  purchase  by  gifts  to  pious  uses,  and 
without  any  special  personal  merit,  high  seats  in  the 
synagogue ;  and  sufficed  to  enrol  them  in  the  list  of 
"gentlemen,"  with  whom  the  ministers  and  the  lawyers 
were  accustomed  to  share  their  authority.  Next  fol 
lowed  the  great  mass  of  the  religiously  disposed ;  for 
it  requires  an  unusual  degree  of  discernment  and  de 
cision,  to  escape  from  the  influences  of  education  and 
habit,  and  to  distinguish  between  a  reverence  for  reli 
gion,  and  a  blind  submission  to  spiritual  guides.  The 
literature  of  the  country,  such  as  it  was,  naturally 
appeared  on  the  side  of  those  who  were  its  principal 
patrons ;  and  crowding  in  the  rear,  came  the  young 
talent  and  ambition  of  the  times,  anxious  to  sus 
tain  a  system,  which  seemed  to  offer  a  rightful  pre 
eminence  to  talent,  and  to  ambition  a  station  above 
the  vulgar  level. 

The  array  upon  the  other  side,  was  contemptible 
in  comparison.  Some  leaders  there  were,  "  sons  of 
liberty,"  who  had  been  nursed  in  the  cradle  of  the 
revolution,  whose  character,  whose  honor,  whose  pat 
riotism  was  unquestionable,  and  upon  whose  clear 
reputation  not  all  the  outrageous  calumny  of  their  op 
ponents  could  fix  the  shadow  of  a  stain.  And  there 
were  some  followers  too,  who  seemed  to  love  democra 
cy  for  itself;  men  enamoured  of  the  idea  of  equality, 
who  sought  no  private  advantage,  but  only  the  public 
good.  But  these,  whether  leaders  or  followers,  were 
comparatively  few.  The  mass  of  the  party  seemed 
made  up  like  the  band  of  David,  when  he  rose  in  rebel 
lion  against  the  Lord's  anointed ; — all  who  were  in 
debt,  all  who  were  in  distress,  all  who  were  discon 
tented,  enlisted  beneath  this  banner;  and  to  believe 
the  account  of  their  opponents,  not  the  tatterdemalions 
of  Falstaff  's  enlistment  were  more  idle,  vicious,  dis 
honest  and  dangerous. 

The  truth  is,  that  so  stern,  severe,  active  and  influ- 
2 


14  DESPOTISM 

ential  was  the  authority  which  the  allied  hierarchy 
exercised,  that  few  men  who  had  property,  standing, 
character,  friends,  to  lose,  cared  to  risk  the  consequen 
ces  of  those  bulls  of  excommunication  which  were 
fulminated  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  and  those 
torrents  of  calumny,  denunciation,  and  abuse,  poured 
forth  by  a  thousand  fluent  tongues,  against  whomso 
ever  deserted  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  and  allied  him 
self  to  the  uncircumcised  Philistines. 

The  democratic  party  were  not  wanting  in  efforts 
to  enlist  the  powerful  aid  of  religion  upon  their  side. 
They  made  friends  with  the  Baptists  and  other  dis 
senters  from  the  established  creed,  who  cherished  an 
hereditary  hatred  toward  the  congregational  priest 
hood,  and  who  were  struggling  to  escape  from  the  le 
gal  disabilities  with  which  their  heresies  still  continued 
to  be  visited.  These  clerical  allies,  in  imitation  of 
their  opponents,  mingled  religion  with  politics,  and 
sought  to  turn  the  excited  feelings  of  their  hearers, 
into  political  channels.  They  were  denounced  by  the 
regular  order,  as  hedge-priests,  sectarians,  wild  enthu 
siasts,  puffed  up  with  a  ridiculous  over-estimate  of 
their  spiritual  endowments,  ignorant,  turbulent,  bad 
men,  who  in  attempting  to  overturn  the  platform  on 
which  was  raised  the  sober  edifice  of  congregational- 
ism,  sought  to  destroy  the  foundations  of  society,  and 
to  mix  up  all  things  in  chaotic  confusion. 

In  this  situation  of  affairs,  democratical  principles 
were  still  enabled  to  gain  the  ascendency  in  New  Eng 
land,  and  to  become  the  prevailing  creed,  by  the  joint 
effect  of  two  separate  causes,  each  of  which  was  per 
haps  potent  enough  in  itself  to  have  ensured  the  vic 
tory. 

Though  the  professors  of  these  principles  were  pro 
scribed  by  the  New  England  oligarchy,  declared  desti 
tute  of  any  claims  to  attention  or  indulgence,  represented 
as  wild  political  fanatics,  the  disciples  of  Robespierre, 
desirous  to  abolish  religion,  and  to  root  up  morals,  to 
destroy  the  natural  instincts  of  humanity,  and  to  sprin 
kle  the  land  with  fire  and  blood;  they  found  encourage- 


IN   AMERICA.  15 

ment,  support  and  aid,  where  there  was  the  least  rea 
son  to  expect  it,  to  wit,  at  the  hands  of  the  southern 
slave-holders.  Who  could  have  anticipated  that  the 
apostle  of  American  democracy  should  himself  have 
been  an  aristocrat  and  a  despot !  Yet  so  it  was.  Jeffer 
son  is  revered,  and  justly,  as  the  earliest,  ablest,  boldest 
and  most  far-going  of  those  who  became  the  expounders 
and  advocates  of  the  democratical  system  in  America. 
Most  of  the  others,  whether  leaders  or  followers, 
seemed  driven  on  by  a  blind  instinct.  They  felt,  but 
did  not  reason.  Jefferson  based  his  political  opinions 
upon  general  principles  of  human  nature.  Men  were 
supposed,  in  other  systems  of  politics,  to  be  helpless, 
blind,  incapable  children,  unfit  to  take  care  of  them 
selves,  and  certain,  if  the  experiment  were  tried,  to  do 
themselves  presently  some  dreadful  and  irreparable 
harm.  Jefferson  argued,  that  however  weak  and  blind 
men  might  be,  yet  their  own  strength  and  eye-sight 
were  still  their  surest  hope,  and  best  dependance.  If 
aid  were  elsewhere  sought,  whence  could  it  come? 
These  guides,  these  guardians,  these  governors,  who 
are  they  ?  Are  they  not  men,  weak  and  blind  ?  Worse 
yet,  men  ready  to  betray  the  confidence  placed  in  them, 
and  under  pretence  of  protection,  themselves  to  plun 
der  and  oppress  ?  It  is  therefore  better  to  make  each 
man,  blind  and  weak  though  he  be,  the  chief  guardian 
of  his  own  welfare.  Subject  no  man  to  the  arbitrary 
control  of  another,  who  if  he  may  be  wiser  and  bet 
ter,  may  just  as  likely,  be  blinder  and  be  worse.  Such 
necessary  rules  of  social  conduct  as  the  judgment  of 
the  majority  shall  approve,  let  them  be  laws,  so  long 
as  that  judgment  continues  to  approve  them ;  and  let 
the  laws  govern,  and  the  laws  alone. 

Such  was  the  political  creed  of  Jefferson.  It  is  the 
creed  of  democracy  ;  and  he  espoused  it  with  a  warm, 
an  active,  almost  a  fanatic  zeal.  The  perfect  political 
equality  of  all  men  ;  the  absolute  right  of  every  man 
to  be  guided  by  his  own  pleasure  and  judgment,  so 
long  as  he  transgresses  no  law,  and  his  equal  claim  to 
a  fair  participation  in  the  enactment  and  repeal  of 


16  DESPOTISM 

every  law ;  these  were  the  very  fundamental  principles 
of  this  political  system.  Yet  Jefferson  remained  all 
his  life  the  tyrant  of  a  plantation,  in  the  enforcement 
of  an  usurped  authority,  either  personally,  or  by  his 
delegate,  which  he  himself  describes,  as  "  a  perpetual 
exercise  of  the  most  boisterous  passions, — the  most 
unremitting  despotism  on  the  one  part,  and  degrading 
submission  on  the  other."  Ah  Truth !  'Tis  thee 
alone  that  men  should  reverence  !  Do  they  reverence 
men,  it  is  an  idolatry  as  base  as  if  they  bowed  to  stocks 
and  stones.  Men  are  blind  and  weak,  the  wisest  and 
the  best !  But  Truth, — it  is  unblemished,  in  itself 
complete,  divine,  pure,  perfect ! 

Had  Jefferson  attempted  to  preach  the  full  extent  of 
his  doctrines  in  his  native  state,  he  would  doubtless 
have  drawn  down  upon  his  head  a  storm  of  hatred  and 
reproach,  not  rashly  to  have  been  encountered,  nor  eas 
ily  to  have  been  withstood.  But  that  was  an  adven 
ture  of  difficulty  and  peril,  which  he  felt  no  call  to 
undertake.  Like  Henry  and  Washington,  and  those 
other  great  men  whose  devoted  patriotism  and  many 
virtues  would  make  us  willingly  forget  that  on  their 
own  estates  they  were  tyrants, — though  he  acknowl 
edged  the  trampled  rights  and  crying  wrongs  of  the 
disenfranchised  half  of  his  fellow  countrymen,  he  yet 
despaired  to  make  any  impression  upon  the  ignorance, 
the  prejudices,  the  blind  and  narrow  self-interest  of 
the  privileged  class,  and  he  contented  himself  with 
now  and  then  a  protest  against  a  system  of  tyrannical 
usurpation,  which  carried  away  by  custom  and  con 
venience,  he  still  continued  to  uphold  through  the  sup 
port  of  his  own  example. 

The  democracy  which  he  preached  at  home,  was 
democracy  among  the  aristocrats ; — and  the  perfect 
equality  of  all  the  members  of  the  privileged  order,  has 
ever  been  a  popular  doctrine  in  all  aristocracies.  The 
"  love  of  liberty"  is  a  phrase  under  which  are  includ 
ed  two  feelings  of  a  very  distinct,  and  sometimes  of 
an  opposite  kind.  Each  individual  is  always  the  ar 
dent  and  zealous  champion  of  his  own  liberty,  be- 


IN    AMERICA.  17 

cause  the  hatred  of  all  extraneous  control,  the  desire 
to  be  solely  governed  by  the  free  impulses  of  his  own 
mind,  is  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  human  nature 
too  essential  ever  to  be  wanting.  Hence  it  is  that  we 
find  kings  and  emperors  among  the  champions  of  lib 
erty  and  equal  rights,  by  which  they  understand,  the 
liberty  of  governing  their  own  realms  without  foreign 
control,  and  the  absolute  equality  of  all  crowned 
heads.  Have  we  not  seen  the  Austrian  and  Russian 
despots,  leaguing  with  th6  king  of  Prussia  and  the 
haughty  aristocracy  of  England  to  vindicate  the  liber 
ties  of  Europe  against  the  usurpation  and  tyrannies  of 
a  Bonaparte  1  When  the  chains  threatened  to  bind 
them,  when  they  were  like  to  be  compelled  to  bow 
their  necks  beneath  the  yoke  of  a  master,  who  more 
sensitive  than  they  to  the  degradations  of  servitude  ? 
Who  more  zealous,  more  earnest,  more  sincere  in  lib 
erty's  cause  ?  Alexander  of  Russia  turned  a  dema 
gogue,  and  the  princes  of  Germany  harangued  their 
subjects,  not  in  the  dry  and  austere  style  of  absolute 
authority,  but  with  the  supplicating  tone,  the  humble 
and  insinuating  eloquence,  the  flattery  and  fair  prom 
ises,  with  which  ambitious  men,  in  popular  states,  seek 
to  inveigle  the  popular  favor. 

This  passion  for  personal  liberty  burns  fiercely  in 
the  soul  of  every  human  being,  and  no  where  fiercer 
than  in  the  hearts  of  an  aristocracy  bred  to  its  posses 
sion,  and  who  have  learned  to  estimate  its  value  by 
having  constantly  before  their  eyes  the  terrible  con 
trast  of  servitude. 

But  the  "love  of  liberty"  has  also  another  mean 
ing.  It  describes  a  passion  not  for  individual  freedom, 
but  for  the  freedom  of  all  men;  a  wide,  expansive 
feeling,  the  offspring  of  benevolence,  the  height  of  phi 
lanthropy,  the  extension  to  others  of  that  which  we 
find  best  and  most  desirable  for  ourselves ;  its  exten 
sion  not  only  to  those  to  whom  we  are  bound  by  fa 
miliar  ties  of  interest  and  sympathy,  our  friends  and 
kindred,  or  those  whom  however  otherwise  uncon 
nected  with  us,  we  still  assimilate  to  ourselves  by 
2* 


18  DESPOTISM 

some  real  or  fanciful  analogies ;  but  absolutely,  its  ex 
tension  to  all  men, — the  love  of  freedom  wherever,  by 
whomsoever,  exercised,  as  an  abstract  good. 

It  is  evident  that  the  love  of  liberty  in  this  high 
sense,  can  shine  out  in  perfection  only  from  hearts  the 
warmest,  souls  the  most  cultivated,  minds  the  most 
lofty,  unclouded  and  serene.  But  fragments  of  it, 
sparks  from  this  celestial  flame,  sometimes  but  dim, 
the  smallest  atom  almost,  and  that  too  buried,  and  quite 
smothered  amid  the  ashes'  of  selfish  passions, — yet 
dim  or  bright,  smothered  or  burning  clear,  this  passion 
for  universal  freedom  is  still  a  part  of  human  nature, 
but  a  part  of  it  which  lies  dead  and  dark  in  unculti 
vated  souls,  and  which  only  begins  to  kindle  and  to 
blaze,  in  the  forward  and  quick  feeling  minds  of  a  pol 
ished  and  reflecting  age. 

To  this  latter  feeling,  noble  and  refined,  and  which 
lurks,  however  invisible,  even  in  the  hearts  of  a  slave- 
holding  aristocracy,  Jefferson  did  not  dare  to  appeal. 
He  was  content  to  act  the  humble  and  comparatively 
inconsiderable  part  of  a  champion  for  equality  among 
the  aristocrats  ;  and  laboring  to  forget  that  the  unpriv 
ileged  class — some  of  whom,  to  believe  the  voice  of 
common  report,  were  his  own  children, — had  any 
greater  capacities  or  rights  than  beasts  of  burden,  he 
curtailed  the  expansive  and  universal  clauses  of  his 
political  creed,  till  the  mantle  of  liberty  which  should 
have  extended  its  protection  to  every  citizen,  embraced 
within  its  torn  and  mutilated  folds  only  the  privileged 
order. 

The  oligarchical  party  in  the  southern  aristocracies, 
the  aristocracy,  so  to  speak,  of  the  privileged  order, 
though  they  were  richer  and  better  educated  than  their 
neighbors  of  the  common  sort,  had  no  such  moral  hold 
upon  men's  minds  as  the  hierarchy  of  the  north.  The 
prejudices  in  favor  of  family  and  rank  to  which  they 
were  indebted  for  the  general  acknowledgment  of 
their  superiority,  had  been  shaken  by  the  revolution, 
and  after  a  short  and  ineffectual  resistance,  the  oli 
garchical  party  in  Virginia  and  the  Oarolinas  was 


IN    AMERICA.  19 

completely  broken  down  by  the  vigorous  assault  which 
the  Jeffersonians  made  upon  them.  Henceforward  the 
most  complete  and  democratical  equality  among  all  the 
members  of  the  privileged  class,  became  the  settled 
and  established  creed  of  southern  politics.  But  the 
Jeffersonian  party,  while  it  aimed  at  overturning  the 
oligarchies  of  the  southern  states,  aimed  also  at  supre 
macy  in  the  federal  government ;  and  the  same  victory 
which  assured  their  ascendency  at  home,  raised  their 
leader  to  the  presidential  chair. 

From  that  elevation,  Jefferson  stretched  forth  a  help 
ing  hand  to  the  struggling  democrats  of  New  Eng 
land  ;  and  by  means  of  the  honors  and  offices  within 
his  gift,  he  enlisted  into  their  cause  divers  mercenaries 
of  courage  and  ability,  who  were  seduced  from  the 
ranks  of  the  hierarchy,  and  having  taken  pay  at  the 
hands  of  democracy,  fought  valiantly  in  her  cause. 

As  the  Jeffersonians  con  tinned  for  twenty-four  years 
at  the  head  of  the  federal  government,  and  during  all 
that  time,  consoled,  comforted,  aided  and  abetted  the 
democrats  of  New  England,  the  party  began  presently 
to  grow  somewhat  more  respectable ;  and  as  the  ad 
vantages  to  be  derived  from  belonging  to  it  became 
more  and  more  numerous,  converts  were  multiplied, 
and  presently  there  might  be  numbered  among  them 
even  some  of  the  clergy  and  the  lawyers. 

It  is  evident  that  this  process  alone  would  at  length 
have  given  to  democratical  principles  a  nominal,  if  not 
a  practical  ascendency.  But  as  I  have  mentioned, 
there  was  another  cause  in  operation,  in  itself  suffi 
cient  to  have  ensured  an  ultimate,  and  a  more  sub 
stantial  triumph.  Notwithstanding  the  grand  array 
of  followers  mustered  by  the  hierarchy,  there  were 
many  among  them  who  at  heart  were  traitors  to  the 
cause.  They  had  been  bred  up  in  a  horror  of  demo 
cracy,  which  they  were  taught  to  regard  as  the  con 
centration  of  all  possible  evil,  and  to  the  repetition  of 
certain  dogmas  containing  the  substance  of  the  oligar 
chical  creed.  Yet  insensibly  they  became  democrats 
themselves  ;  and  the  superior  order,  to  maintain  its 


20  DESPOTISM 

influence  and  preserve  its  ascendency,  was  soon  oblig 
ed  to  descend  to  all  those  arts  of  popularity,  which 
when  practised  by  their  opponents,  they  had  denounc 
ed  as  fit  only  for  demagogues. 

The  power  of  the  priestly  and  legal  hierarchy  consist 
ed  in  their  monopoly  of  talent  and  education,  and  in  a 
certain  superstitious  reverence  with  which  they  were 
regarded  by  the  people.  So  long  as  these  two  sources 
of  power  continued  in  full  operation,  their  credit  could 
not  be  shaken,  and  their  influence  carried  every  thing 
before  it.  But  with  the  progress  of  time,  and  the  in 
creasing  wealth  of  the  community,  education  became 
more  general,  books  and  periodicals  were  multiplied, 
and  knowledge  was  disseminated.  The  oligarchical 
order  lost  their  superiority  in  this  respect,  and  with  it, 
they  lost  the  awe  and  veneration  of  the  people.  To 
complete  their  discomfiture,  they  quarrelled  among 
themselves  on  certain  points  of  theology ;  and  as  the 
dispute  waxed  warm,  the  parties  to  it  became  more  in 
tent  upon  destroying  each  other's  influence,  than  upon 
maintaining  their  own. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  oligarchical  rule  in  New 
England,  of  which  some  vestiges  yet  remain,  but  of 
which  the  life  and  spirit  has  departed.  The  political 
creed,  generally  and  it  may  be  said,  universally,  pro 
fessed, — albeit  the  ancient  regime  has  still  many  se 
cret  adherents, — is  a  purely  democratic  creed,  and  the 
struggle  for  influence  and  office  between  contending 
politicians,  turns  wholly  upon  the  question,  who  among 
them  are  the  best  democrats,  who  are  most  devoted  to 
the  interests  of  the  people? 

Though  the  New  England  States  formed  that  part 
of  the  Union  which  held  out  longest  against  the  general 
reception  of  the  democratic  theory,  yet  the  equal  distri 
bution  of  property,  the  more  extensive  diffusion  of 
knowledge,  and  that  feeling  of  personal  independence 
and  equality  long  cherished  among  the  people,  made 
them  from  the  beginning,  the  best  adapted  of  all  the 
states,  to  enter  fully  into  the  spirit  of  democracy,  and  to 
display,  in  the  most  striking  light,  the  advantages  of 


IN    AMERICA.  21 

that  form  of  government.  Accordingly  it  may  be  said 
that  the  New  England  States,  notwithstanding  some 
gross  defects  in  their  political  and  social  system,  afford, 
at  this  moment,  the  most  remarkable  approach  any 
where  to  be  found,  toward  the  theoretical  perfection  of 
ideal  democracy. 

But  it  was  not  in  New  England  alone,  that  the  pro 
gress  of  the  democratical  experiment  met  with  opposi 
tion.  The  middle  states — New  York,  New  Jersey  and 
Pennsylvania, — at  the  era  of  the  revolution,  contained 
an  oligarchy  of  rich  land-holders,  who  assumed,  and 
for  some  time  retained,  the  exclusive  political  control 
of  their  respective  communities.  To  this  landed  aris 
tocracy  the  lawyers  joined  themselves,  as  also  the  cler 
gy,  whose  influence  though  by  no  means  equal  to  that 
of  their  brethren  in  New  England,  was  far  from  con 
temptible.  The  yeomanry  of  those  states  were  in 
general,  rude  and  ignorant.  As  there  was  no  system 
of  public  schools,  many  of  them  were  unable  to  read ; 
and  if  they  were  free  from  some  of  the  prejudices  of 
the  New  En  glanders,  they  were  far  behind  them,  in 
knowledge,  industry,  self-respect,  and  that  sensibility 
of  mind  and  heart,  which  civilization  produces. 

If  the  members  of  the  oligarchical  party  in  these 
states,  could  have  agreed  among  themselves,  they  might 
long  have  maintained  their  influence  and  authority. 
But  presently  they  quarrelled,  and  divided  into  hostile 
and  bitter  factions.  Certain  persons  among  them, 
whether  to  secure  the  popular  favor  by  putting  them 
selves  forward  as  the  champions  of  popular  rights,  or 
some  of  them  perhaps,  sincere  converts  to  the  creed, 
soon  declared  themselves  the  patrons  and  champions 
of  democracy;  but  as  they  had  a  powerful  resistance 
to  contend  against  at  home,  and  opponents  who,  though 
discomfited,  still  kept  the  field,  they  were  fain  to  yield 
the  precedence  to  Jefferson  and  his  southern  supporters, 
and  to  be  content  with  the  second  part,  where  they 
would  gladly  have  claimed  the  first. 

As  to  the  states  north-west  of  the  Ohio,  which  are 
now  beginning  to  occupy  so  conspicuous  a  place  in  the 


22  DESPOTISM 

Union,  their  origin  is  so  recent,  and  their  population 
has  hitherto  been  so  much  engrossed  with  the  cares 
and  occupations  incident  to  new  settlements,  that  as 
yet,  they  have  exercised  but  a  limited  influence  upon 
the  sentiment  and  opinions  of  the  country.  That  in 
fluence  however  has  been  almost  purely  democratic, 
and  from  the  very  birth  of  those  communities,  democ 
racy  has  always  been  their  prevailing  political  creed. 

These  slight  and  imperfect  historical  sketches  lead 
us  to  a  fact  of  the  greatest  importance  towards  a  cor 
rect  understanding  of  the  progress,  present  state,  and 
future  prospects  of  political  opinion  and  political  action, 
in  America.  Ever  since  the  formation  of  the  federal 
constitution,  down  almost  to  the  present  moment, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  democratic  party  of  the 
Union  has  been  headed,  guided,  governed  and  con 
trolled  by  certain  slave-holding  aristocrats  of  the  south; 
— JeiFerson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  Jackson  have  been 
successively,  its  leaders,  and  its  idols. 

Under  Jefferson,  theoretical  democracy  was  a  new 
thing ;  and  it  was  embraced  with  all  the  warmth  which 
novelty  is  apt  to  inspire.  It  formed  a  principal  topic 
of  public  discussion ;  and  was  defended,  if  not  always 
by  sound  reasonings  and  substantial  arguments,  yet 
with  the  enthusiastic  zeal  of  sincere  conviction. 

But  presently  the  public  attention  was  diverted  into 
other  channels,  and  became  engrossed  by  matters 
with  which  democracy  had  little  or  no  connection. 
Under  Madison,  the  great  question  was,  whether  the 
United  States  should  resent  and  repel  the  insults  and 
the  wrongs  heaped  upon  them  by  foreign  powers,  and 
if  so,  whether  they  should  make  war  against  the 
tyrant  Bonaparte,  or  the  English  aristocracy.  The 
democratic  party  was  in  general  favorable  to  Bona 
parte,  for  he  was  the  child,  and  he  had  declared  him 
self  the  heir,  and  had  seized  upon  the  inheritance  of 
the  French  Revolution.  But  the  very  fact  that  they 
were  led  by  irrational  sympathies,  and  the  ardor  of 
political  controversy,  to  wink  at,  to  apologize  for,  and 
almost  to  defend,  the  violence  and  outrages  of  a  mili- 


IN   AMERICA.  23 

tary  usurper,  was  so  contrary  to  their  principles,  and 
produced  such  a  confusion  of  ideas,  that  the  great 
doctrines  of  their  creed  dropped  almost  out  of  sight, 
and  whether  or  not  one  was  favorable  to  a  war  with 
Great  Britain,  presently  became  the  test  of  political 
orthodoxy, — a  test  altogether  aside  from  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  the  democratical  system. 

Under  Monroe,  the  great  controversies  of  the  day, 
respected  the  protection  of  American  industry ;  a  pure 
question  of  national  economy,  upon  which  people 
took  sides,  for  the  most  part,  not  according  to  their 
political  opinions,  but  according  to  the  views  they  en 
tertained  of  the  effect  which  this  protection  would  be 
likely  to  have  upon  their  own  private  pecuniary  in 
terests. 

During  the  administrations  of.  Madison  and  Mon 
roe  though  the  democratic  creed  was  predominant 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  country,  and 
though  during  the  interval,  it  achieved  its  final  tri 
umph  in  New  England,  yet  beginning  in  those  states 
•where  it  had  earliest  prevailed,  and  extending  gradual 
ly  to  the  rest,  it  degenerated  almost  into  a  mere  form 
of  words  without  force  or  vitality. 

This  state  of  things  is  easily  explained.  The 
leaders  of  the  democratic,  as  of  all  other  political  par 
ties,  were  for  the  most  part  adventurers, — mere  sol 
diers  of  fortune,  who  sought  credit,  honors,  office,  and 
power,  by  the  zealous  advocacy  of  principles  which 
they  saw  to  have  many  adherents,  but  for  which  they 
themselves  felt  no  very  devoted  love,  apart  from  the 
advancement  to  which  they  hoped  these  principles 
might  help  them.  That  advancement  attained,  the 
party  triumphant,  themselves  in  office,  they  looked 
with  feelings  of  contempt  upon  the  ladder  by  which 
they  had  ascended,  they  were  even  desirous  to  cast  it 
down,  lest  perchance  stronger  men  might  climb  up 
thereby,  and  thrust  them  from  their  places. 

The  mouths  of  the  prophets  being  closed,  the  peo 
ple  wandered  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd ;  and 
though  the  democratic  creed  was  publicly  professed 


24  DESPOTISM 

by  all,  there  lurked  in  the  hearts  of  many  a  cold  in 
difference,  a  sneering  scepticism,  a  silent  disbelief. 

With  Monroe  terminated  the  direct  line  of  the  Jef- 
fersonian  succession;  and  then  began  that  struggle 
for  the  possession  of  the  presidential  chair,  which  has 
ever  since  been  so  pertinaciously  kept  up, — a  contest 
in  the  earlier  part  of  which  no  one  had  a  larger  share 
than  John  C.  Calhoun,  a  person  likely  to  figure  in 
history,  for  the  instruction  and  amusement  of  man 
kind. 

That  able,  but  restless  and  unprincipled  man,  first 
came  into  public  life  as  a  leading  democrat ;  but  that 
was  at  a  time  when  democracy  in  its  current  sense, 
meant  little  more  than  hostility  to  Great  Britain. 
Coming  from  South  Carolina  as  he  did,  it  was  but 
natural  that  he  should  be,  as  he  was,  a  thorough 
aristocrat ;  and  that  not  content  with  the  mere  supre 
macy  of  one  race  over  another,  he  desired  to  concen 
trate  all  political  power  in  the  hands  of  a  chosen 
few,  of  whom  he  himself  should  be  the  chief  and. 
leader. 

But  satisfied  by  the  result  of  his  earlier  experi 
ments,  that  the  aristocratical  party  was  not  strong 
enough  to  bestow  that  power  at  which  he  aimed,  and 
that  even  if  it  were,  he  would  encounter  on. that  side, 
some  dangerous  competitors ;  he  turned  short  about, 
and  recollecting  the  success  of  Jefferson,  resolved  to 
try  a  new  means  of  advancement,  and  to  summon 
up,  from  the  slumbers  of  some  sixteen  years,  the 
genius  of  Democracy,  which  he  fondly  hoped  to  be 
able  to  convert  into  the  mere  servant  of  his  political 
schemes. 

The  magician  was  able,  and  the  charm  worked 
well.  Dimly  in  the  distance,  hazy  and  indistinct,  ap 
peared  a  figure,  whose  broad  proportions  told  that 
time  and  slumber  had  but  increased  its  stature  and 
its  power.  One  foot  upon  the  western  prairies,  the 
other  amid  the  snowy  hills  of  New  England,  it  strode 
across  the  land.  The  people  saw  and  worshipped. 
A  new  enthusiasm  was  kindled  in  their  hearts.  No- 


IN    AMERICA.  25 

thing  could  resist  it.  Those  who  put  themselves 
forward  as  the  priests,  the  favored,  the  chosen  of  tins 
new  avatar  of  democratical  reform,  were  received 
with  confidence,  welcomed  with  acclamation,  and  en 
trusted  with  power.  So  far  the  thing  worked  well, 
and  he  who  had  called  up  this  apparition  of  democra 
cy,  succeeded  in  installing,  as  its  high-priest  and 
chosen  minister,  a  man  who  had  been  a  slave-trader, 
a  man  who  was  a  slave-holder,  who  preached  liberty 
and  equality  at  Washington,  but  who  at  home  was 
the  despot  of  the  Hermitage  ! 

His  purposes  thus  far  accomplished,  he  who  had 
raised  the  spirit  sought  to  lay  it.  But  it  defies  his 
power.  Among  the  crowd  of  hypocritical  worship 
pers  and  blind  devotees,  there  are  found  a  few  whose 
homage  is  at  once  enlightened  and  sincere.  They 
look  upon  democracy  not  with  a  stupid  gaze  of  admi 
ration,  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  apparent 
and  the  real,  but  with  a  discernment,  upon  which  the 
arts  of  political  cunning  will  not  easily  impose.  De 
mocracy,  in  their  estimation,  is  not  a  mere  phantom 
by  whose  aid  the  credulous  may  be  deluded,  and  offi 
ces  and  honors  be  secured  to  the  deluders  ;  it  is  a  real 
existence,  a  substantial  thing,  a  powerful  and  essen 
tial  means  of  advancing  the  public  welfare.  It  is  to 
these  adherents,  that  Democracy  now  entrusts  herself. 
From  being  the  nursling,  the  pupil,  the  instrument  of 
Southern  despotism,  she  is  about  to  become  a  rival 
and  an  enemy.  The  allegiance  she  has  so  long  yield 
ed  to  Southern  step-fathers,  she  will  yield  no  longer. 
The  alliance  is  broken ;  and  conscious  of  superior 
power  and  higher  claims,  Democracy  demands  hom 
age  and  submission,  where  hitherto  she  has  paid 
them. 

She  prepares  to  act.  She  points  in  sorrow,  shame 
and  anger,  to  the  capital  turned  into  a  slave  market; 
to  the  broad  plains  of  the  south,  watered  with  the 
blood  of  their  cultivators ;  and  to  the  thousand  petty 
despots,  each  arbitrary  lord  and  irresponsible  tyrant, 
upon  his  own  plantation. 
3 


26  DESPOTISM 

It  is  in  vain  that  southern  oppressors  console  them 
selves  with  ideas  of  the  insignificance  of  those  who 
make  the  first  assault.  They  may  ridicule  them  as 
fools,  fanatics,  women.  What  of  that  ?  Does  the  re 
sult  of  an  attack  depend  upon  the  prudence,  or  the 
wisdom  of  those  who  have  volunteered  for  the  forlorn 
hope  1  What  matter  who  or  what  they  are,  those 
who  rush  blindly  and  devotedly  upon  the  open-mouth 
ed  cannon,  the  leveled  bayonets  of  the  enemy  ?  They 
are  but  food  for  powder,  and  they  know  it.  In  every 
great  cause  it  is  necessary  that  some  should  perish. 
But  if  the  cause  be  great,  for  one  that  falls,  ten  will 
be  found  ambitious  so  to  suffer  ! 

It  is  in  vain  we  at  the  North,  cry  out  that  the  con 
test  is  unseasonable  and  premature.  It  has  begun  ;  it 
must  go  on.  Grant  that  over-zealous  and  fanatical 
haste  has  precipitated  a  struggle  which  we  would 
gladly  have  deferred,  and  slumbering  out  our  own 
time  in  quiet,  have  thrust  upon  the  days  of  our  chil 
dren.  No  matter.  In  this  thing  we  cannot  have  our 
way.  The  trumpet  has  sounded  ;  the  bold  and  un 
quiet  are  rushing  to  the  field.  We  may  cry  peace, 
peace, — but  there  is  no  peace.  Fight  we  must,  upon 
one  side  or  the  other.  The  contest  is  begun  already, 
and  will  soon  become  general.  In  such  a  struggle 
there  can  be  no  neutrality.  It  is  time  to  be  choosing 
under  which  banner  we  will  stand  ! 

To  every  one  at  the  North,  Democracy  is  to  some 
extent  familiar.  Many  have  doubtless  viewed  it 
through  a  deceptive  medium,  and  have  seen  it  only 
as  it  has  been  reflected  by  ignorance,  or  distorted  by 
prejudice;  all  however  have  formed  some  opinion 
about  it,  and  that  opinion  is  founded  upon  knowledge 
either  actual  or  imaginary.  But  Despotism,  the  des 
potism  of  the  slave  states,  is  a  thing  known  at  the 
north  only  by  name,  and  in  general.  Few  have  seen 
it;  fewer  still  have  studied  it ;  and  the  greater  part 
are  totally  ignorant  of  its  real  character. 

Before  enlisting,  it  is  well  to  know  the  cause  in 
which  we  are  to  serve.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  fol- 


IN    AMERICA.  27 

lowing  pages  to  exhibit  the  system  of  social  polity 
established  in  the  southern  states,  such  as  it  is  in  its 
operation  and  effects ;  not  in  particular  and  accidental 
instances,  but  generally,  and  by  virtue  of  those  laws 
of  human  nature  upon  which  the  working  of  social 
and  political  institutions  must  depend. 

This  inquiry  is  necessary  for  our  own  satisfaction. 
Without  making  it,  how  can  we  act  either  reasonably 
or  safely?  Here  is  a  question  with  two  sides  to  it, 
and  one  side  or  the  other,  we  must  take.  How  can 
we  choose  without  knowledge  ?  Despotism  may  be 
an  excellent  thing,  well  entitled  to  our  warmest  sup 
port;  but  how  can  we  know  it  to  be  so,  without 
knowing  what  it  is  ? 

Yet  are  we  stopped  short,  in  the  very  threshold  of  this 
inquiry,  by  the  threats  and  execrations  of  the  south. 
Dare  to  inquire ;  dare  look  behind  the  veil  that  hides 
our  private  doings ;  dare  question  us,  or  any  of  our 
acts,  and  we  dissolve  the  Union !  Such  an  imperti 
nence  is  lawful  cause  of  war,  and  we  will  wage  it ! 

Indeed  ! — It  is  necessary  then  to  weigh  these  threats. 

The  Union  of  the  States  has  been  made  the  occasion 
and  the  theme  of  a  great  deal  of  unmeaning  declama 
tion.  An  idea  seems  to  prevail,  that  excellent  a  thing 
as  the  Union  is,  the  people,  ignorant  and  short-sight 
ed,  may  sometime  take  it  into  their  heads  to  think 
otherwise ;  and  therefore  it  is  necessary  to  create  a 
prejudice  in  favor  of  the  Union, — a  sort  of  feeling  for 
it  like  that  feeling  of  loyalty,  which  has  often  upheld 
a  throne  in  spite  of  the  vices  and  the  tyranny  of  him 
who  sat  upon  it. 

Under  a  democratic  government,  prejudices  of  this 
sort  are  not  only  useless,  they  are  highly  mischievous ; 
they  are  but  manacles  and  fetters  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  artful  and  designing,  by  means  of  which  the 
people  are  bound,  and  shorn,  against  their  interest, 
and  against  their  judgment. 

The  men  who  formed  the  Union  were  neither  bet 
ter  nor  wiser  than  ourselves.  For  certain  arguments 
and  reasons  in  its  favor,  they  formed  it ;  for  certain 


28  DESPOTISM 

arguments  and  reasons  in  its  favor,  we  should  sustain 
it;  not  for  itself;  for  in  itself,  it  is  neither  good  nor 
bad.  It  may  be  either,  as  circumstances  are. 

What  are  these  reasons  and  arguments  in  favor  of 
the  Union  ?  Briefly  these ;  that  the  Union  serves  to 
protect  us  against  aggressions  from  abroad,  and  civil 
war  at  home ;  that  it  is  the  best  guarantee  of  our 
independence  and  our  freedom. 

But  suppose  this  same  Union  to  be  made  the  pre 
text  for  a  violent  interference  with  our  dearest  rights? 
Suppose  that  under  pretence  of  preserving  the  Union, 
we  are  to  be  deprived  of  the  liberty  of  the  press,  the 
liberty  of  discussion,  the  liberty  of  thought. — nay 
more,  the  liberty  of  feeling,  the  right  of  sympathy 
with  those  who  suffer  ?  Suppose  this  Union  requires 
to  be  cemented  with  blood,  and  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  surrender  up  the  noblest  of  our  sons  and 
daughters  to  be  tortured  to  death  by  southern  whips, 
for  the  grievous  sin  of  having  denounced  despotism 
with  the  generous  emphasis  of  freedom  ? 

Are  we  ready  to  bow  thus  submissively  before  the 
grim  and  bloody  shrine  of  this  political  Moloch  ?  Are 
we  prepared  to  make  these  sacrifices?  When  the 
thing  has  changed  its  nature,  what  though  it  still  re 
tain  its  former  name?  Though  it  be  called  a  Union, 
what  is  it  but  a  base  subjection,  a  miserable  servitude? 

Some  eighty  years  ago,  we  had  a  Union  with  Great 
Britain,  a  Union  that  had  lasted  for  near  two  centu 
ries,  a  cherished  Union,  the  recollection  of  which 
kindled  a  glow  in  every  American  bosom ;  not  a  fra 
ternal  Union  merely,  but  closer  yet,  maternal,  filial. 
That  connection  had  many  things  to  recommend  it. 
It  sustained  our  weakness ;  it  brightened  our  ob 
scurity  ;  it  made  us  partakers  in  the  renown  of 
Britain,  and  part  and  parcel  of  a  great  nation. 
What  curses,  eighty  years  ago,  would  have  blighted 
the  parricide,  who  should  have  gone  about  to  sever 
that  connection,  so  dear,  so  beneficial ! 

The  mother  country,  not  satisfied  with  the  affec 
tion  of  her  daughter,  sought  to  abuse  her  power,  and 


IN    AMERICA. 


29 


to  extort  a  tribute.  But  were  all  the  advantages  of 
our  Union  with  Britain  to  be  given  up,  merely  to 
avoid  the  payment  of  a  paltry  tax  on  tea  ?  Were  all 
the  calamities  of  civil  war  to  be  hazarded,  all  the 
miseries  of  a  hostile  invasion,  intrigues  with  foreign 
powers,  and  their  dangerous  interference,  public  debts, 
standing  armies,  the  risk  of  anarchy,  and  of  military 
usurpation  ? 

Yes,  all,  said  our  fathers,  all  is  to  be  risked,  rather 
than  surrender  our  pecuniary  independence,  rather 
than  become  tributary  to  a  British  parliament ;  rather 
than  be  taxed  at  the  pleasure  of  the  mother  country. 
A  Union  upon  such  terms  is  a  mockery  ;  it  is  not  the 
Union  we  have  loved  and  cherished.  We  scorn  it, 
and  we  spurn  it. 

So  our  fathers  said.  And  when  it  is  undertaken  to 
deprive  us  not  of  our  money, — which,  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  we  might  be  willing  to  part  with, — but  of  that 
whose  value  money  cannot  estimate ;  when  it  is  at 
tempted  to  shut  out  from  us  the  atmosphere,  the  essen 
tial  life-breath  of  liberty;  when  it  is  sought  to  gag 
our  free  mouths,  to  forbid  and  stop  the  beating  of  our 
free  hearts;  to  subdue  us  by  penal  statutes  into  a 
servile  torpidity,  and  an  obsequious  silence,  shall  we 
hesitate  one  moment  to  repel  this  impudent  effort  of 
despotism,  because,  if  we  refuse  to  submit,  it  will  en 
danger  the  Union  ?  Perish  the  Union  ;  let  it  ten  times 
perish,  from  the  moment  it  becomes  inconsistent  with 
humanity  and  with  freedom  ! 

Should  South  Carolina  declare  that  war,  for  which, 
as  she  asserts,  she  has  such  lawful  cause,  and  march  an 
army  northward  to  enforce  silence  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  the  sons  of  those  men  who  fought  at  Lexington 
and  Bunker  Hill,  will  perhaps  know  how  to  repel  the 
invaders  ;  and  those  states  which  furnished  soldiers, 
generals,  arms  and  money,  to  re-conquer  Carolina  from 
Cornwallis  and  Rawdon,  will  be  able,  peradventure, 
to  vindicate  their  own  liberties  against  any  force  which 
Carolinian  despots  may  be  able  to  send  against  them. 

In  this  matter,  let  us  learn  a  lesson  from  these  very 
3* 


30  DESPOTISM 

Carolinians.  It  is  now  some  twenty  years  since,  that 
South  Carolina  considered  herself  aggrieved,  by  what 
she  esteemed  the  usurpations  of  the  federal  govern 
ment.  She  accused  Congress  of  levying  taxes,  which 
the  constitution  did  not  authorize.  No  matter  wheth 
er  the  charge  were  true  or  false ;  those  who  made  it, 
doubtless  were  sincere.  And  did  they  quietly  submit 
to  this  aggression,  rather  than  endanger  the  Union  by 
their  resistance?  Not  they. 

Though  denounced  at  the  north  as  rebels  and  traitors, 
though  coldly  looked  upon  even  by  those  states  which 
shared  the  grievance,  and  which  had  promised  to  as 
sist  in  the  redress;  though  unaided  and  alone,  and 
harassed  too  by  a  large  party  at  home,  who  threat 
ened,  in  the  event  of  hostilities,  to  take  sides  with  the 
general  government, — the  South  Carolinian  leaders 
magnanimously  dared  to  "  calculate  the  value  of  the 
Union  ;  "  arid  they  concluded,  like  brave  men  as  they 
were,  that  rather  than  give  place  to  what  they  es 
teemed  oppression,  rather  than  be  ruled  in  a  manner 
which  no  constitution  authorized,  rather  than  submit 
to  an  usurped  authority,  it  were  better  to  break  the 
Union,  and  risk  a  war. 

The  bold  are  always  less  in  danger  than  the  timid. 
The  strength  and  resources  of  South  Carolina  com 
pared  with  those  of  the  remaining  states,  were  but  as 
dust  in  the  balance ;  yet  rather  than  provoke  violent 
resistance,  by  an  exercise  of  doubtful  authority,  Con 
gress  yielded ;  the  tariff  was  modified,  and  the  prin 
ciple  of  pure  and  unlimited  protection  was  totally 
abandoned. 

If  South  Carolina  calculated  the  value  of  the  Union, 
when  it  was  only  a  question  of  tariffs  and  of  taxes, 
shall  we  hesitate  to  calculate  its  value,  when  the 
dearest  rights  of  manhood  are  in  danger?  when  we 
are  commanded  to  submit  in  silence,  and  not  dare  to 
criticise  the  despotism  that  controls  us? 

Let  them  break  the  Union,  if  they  choose ;  it  is  a 
matter  wherein  they  are  free  to  act.  But  before  they 
break  it,  they  will  do  well  to  revise  their  calculations 


IN    AMERICA.  31 

of  its  value.  What  the  southern  States  would  be,  if 
they  stood  alone ;  what  elements  they  have  within 
themselves  of  civilization,  greatness,  safety,  strength, 
and  power ;  what  sort  of  a  nation  they  would  form,  if 
isolated,  and  cut  off  from  intercourse  with  their  north 
ern  neighbors,  is  an  inquiry  which  will  find  its  proper 
place  hereafter.  But  there  are  some  more  obvious 
considerations,  which  our  southern  friends  will  do 
well  deliberately  to  weigh,  before  they  judge  fit  to 
dissolve  the  confederacy,  and  to  break  up  those  con 
stitutional  guarantees  by  which  they  are  now  protect 
ed.  As  sister  states,  talk  as  they  may  of  the  mis 
chievous  intermeddlings  of  the  north,  they  enjoy 
privileges  and  an  impunity,  they  never  could  expect 
from  a  foreign,  an  offended  and  a  hostile  nation. 
Those  unhappy  fugitives  who  had  once  reached  the 
borders  of  States  then  truly  free,  could  never  be  re 
claimed  ;  as  between  independent  nations,  the  tortures 
and  the  death  wantonly  inflicted  upon  northern  citi 
zens  would  no  longer  be  regarded  with  a  careless  un 
concern;  and  how  many  forays  from  the  frontiers, 
how  many  crusades  of  liberty  would  there  not  be  un 
dertaken,  by  men  anxious  to  redeem  from  slavery,  if 
not  their  own  relatives,  those  at  least  whom  they  re 
gard  as  brothers'?  These  collisions,  sooner  or  later, 
would  inevitably  bring  on  war  ;  and  the  broad  banner 
of  emancipation,  with  fifty  thousand  men  to  back  it, 
once  displayed,  and  gayly  flaunting  on  the  southern 
breeze,  farewell,  and  forever,  to  the  despotisms  of  the 
south ! 

But  here  we  are  met  again. 

If  you  have  no  regard  for  yourselves,  say  our  south 
ern  friends,  fool-hardy  and  fanatical,  if  you  do  not 
tremble  at  that  annihilation  with  which  we  threaten 
you, — pray,  at  least,  have  some  consideration  for  us. 
Remember  the  delicacy  of  our  situation.  Do  you 
wish  to  involve  us  in  all  the  horrors  of  a  servile  in 
surrection  ?  Why  scatter  "seed  that  will  presently 
germinate,  and  sooner  or  later  will  ripen  into  a  har 
vest  of  desolation  and  blood?" 


32  DESPOTISM 

How  this  solemn  objurgation  is  to  be  reconciled  with 
the  loud  threat  of  severing  the  Union,  and  enforcing 
silence  and  submission  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
those  can  best  tell  who  are  accustomed  to  join  that 
threat  and  this  objurgation.  In  the  mean  time,  we 
may  remark  a  curious  analogy. 

When  the  JefTersoniaii  aristocrats  of  the  south  first 
began  to  preach  the  doctrines  of  democracy,  it  was  in 
terms  like  these  that  they  were  greeted  by  the  north 
ern  oligarchs.  "  Bad  men,  wicked,  turbulent,  sedi 
tious,  fanatical,  contrivers  of  mischief,  what  mean  ye, 
what  do  ye  desire  ?  Would  you  uproot  society  from 
its  foundations  ?  Would  you  abolish  religion  ?  Would 
you  overturn  morality  ?  Would  you  do  away  with 
government  ?  Would  you  dissolve  all  ties  ?  Would 
you  put  an  end  to  the  established  order  and  rightful 
propriety  of  things  ? 

"  What  ? — Do  you  seek  to  elevate  the  most  ignorant 
and  abandoned  of  society  to  a  level  with  us,  their  bet 
ters  and  natural  superiors  ?  Would  you  deprive  us  of 
that  power  and  authority  which  God  has  seen  fit  to 
entrust  to  us,  which  is  our  natural  right,  and  which 
we  exercise  so  much  to  our  own  honor,  arid  the  bene 
fit  of  those  we  rule  ? 

"  Yes  : — and  you  talk  of  guillotines  too  ;  you  dare 
to  denounce  us  as  tyrants ;  you  are  organizing  a  con 
spiracy  for  a  general  insurrection,  and  for  the  slaugh 
ter  and  destruction  of  all  good  men.  Out  upon  ye,  ye 
Robespierres,  ye  Dan  tons,  ye  blood-thirsty  knaves  ! 
Democrats  forsooth  ! — Jacobins,  atheists,  murderous 
villains  !  Why  scatter  seed  that  will  presently  germi 
nate,  and  sooner  or  later,  will  ripen  into  a  harvest 
of  desolation  and  blood  ?  " 

So  they  preached,  and  so  they  prated,  from  pul 
pits  and  the  press.  Yes,  and  they  passed  laws  too. 
There  was  the  Alien  Law,  whereby  all  dangerous 
foreigners  were  to  be  excluded  from  the  country ;  and 
there  was  the  Sedition  Lav),  intended  to  gag  the  press, 
and  to  subject  those  who  spoke  disrespectfully  of  the 
powers  that  were,  to  the  penalty  of  fine  and  imprison 
ment. 


IN    AMERICA.  33 

When  the  southern  aristocrats  offered  to  our  fathers 
the  precious  boon  of  democracy,  such  was  the  loath 
ing,  such  the  struggling  reluctance,  and  such  the  pas 
sionate  indignation  with  which  they  received,  and 
would  have  rejected  it.  And  now  that  we,  in  our 
turn,  recollecting  with  gratitude,  the  good  offices  of 
the  South,  seek  to  repay  the  favor,  and  commend  to 
their  lips  that  same  draught,  of  their  own  concocting, 
which  however  bitter  to  the  taste  has  health  and  vigor 
in  it,  life  and  strength  ;  they  in  their  turn,  with  the  rage 
and  malice  of  spoiled  and  wayward  children,  reject  the 
medicine,  snap  at  the  nurse,  and  load  their  best  friends 
with  frantic  maledictions. 

Let  us  be  patient  with  them ; — they  are  sick.  Yes 
very  sick;  and  when  the  fit  is  on,  light-headed.  Com 
pared  with  their  disorder,  all  the  fierce  fevers  that  in 
fest  their  clima  are  mild  and  trivial.  What  angry 
passions,  what  tormenting  fury,  what  anxious  fears, 
what  cares,  forebodings,  terrors,  tremors,  seize  upon 
the  despot,  when  he  feels  the  sceptre  slipping  from  his 
grasp,  and  sees  his  subjects  ready  to  claim  their  free 
dom? 

How  he  has  governed ;  how  he  has  trodden  under 
foot  men  good  as  he ;  what  wrongs  he  has  inflict 
ed  ;  what  cruel,  bloody,  barbarous,  bitter  wrongs,  he 
knows  fall  well.  He  dreads  a  retribution  ;  he  shakes 
and  changes  color  when  he  thinks  how  just  that  retri 
bution,  and  if  complete,  how  ample  !  Though  he  be 
brave,  a  coward  conscience  chases  away  his  courage ; 
a  cold  sweat  stands  upon  his  brow  ;  and  he  becomes 
as  fearful  as  a  child,  while  phantom  images  of  guilty 
actions  flit  round  his  pillow, — 

By  the  apostle  Paul,  shadows  to-night 
Have  struck  more  terror  to  the  soul  of  Richard, 
Than  could  the  substance  of  ten  thousand  soldiers 
Armed  in  proof. 

Those  frightful  visions  which  afflict  the  south ; 
they  are  but  shadows.  One  act  of  generous  justice, 


34  DESPOTISM    IN    AMERICA. 

of  prudent  justice,  which  yields  what  it  can  safely 
keep  no  longer,  shall  absolve  the  greatest  tyrant  of 
them  all,  and  send  him  forth,  a  neophyte  from  the 
baptismal  font  of  freedom,  pure,  washed,  and  spotless  ; 
and  he  may  walk,  like  Sylla  the  ex-dictator,  through 
the  streets  of  Rome,  unguarded,  undisguised,  and 
meet  at  every  turn  one  he  has  injured,  yet  never 
surfer  harm  ! 

But  an  act  like  this  requires  a  moral  courage  a  noble 
ness  of  soul,  not  common.  That  justice  is  the  highest 
expediency,  is  a  maxim  which  our  southern  friends 
sometimes  repeat,  but  a  doctrine  which  they  have  not 
the  wisdom,  nor  the  magnanimity  to  practise. 

In  the  mean  time  they  need  our  help,  our  most  judi 
cious  care.  But  to  afford  it,  we  ought  to  understand 
their  actual  condition ;  we  must  make  ourselves  fa 
miliar  with  that  melancholy  state  of  things,  of  which 
they  are  at  once  the  champions  and  the  victims. 

And  this  knowledge  is  necessary  to  us  not  on  their 
account  only,  but  also  on  our  own.  We  form  a  part 
of  the  same  nation.  It  is  hardly  possible  for  one  mem 
ber  to  surfer,  and  the  disease  not  to  extend  sympatheti 
cally  to  the  whole  body.  Suppose  a  general  insurrec 
tion  at  the  south, — who  would  be  called  upon  for  men, 
arms,  and  money,  to  put  it  down  ?  Suppose  the  slaves 
rise  upon  their  masters, — is  it  not  the  democrats  of  the 
north,  who  are  constitutionally  bound  to  draw  their 
swords  in  behalf  of  despotism  ? — those  very  democrats, 
who  have  said  and  sworn,  that  resistance  to  tyrants 
is  obedience  to  God? 

Let  us  learn,  then,  the  full  extent  of  this  obligation ; 
let  us  know  what  that  system  is,  which  we  may  thus 
be  called  upon  to  uphold ! 


CHAPTER   FIRST. 

THE    RELATION    OF    MASTER    AND    SLAVE. 


SECTION  I. 

The  Origin  of  Slavery. 

THE  relation  of  master  and  slave,  like  most  other 
kinds  of  despotism,  has  its  origin  in  war.  By  the 
confession  of  its  warmest  defenders,  slavery  is  at  best, 
but  a  substitute  for  homicide. 

Savages  take  no  prisoners;  or  those  they  do  take, 
they  first  torture,  and  then  devour.  But  when  the 
arts  of  life  have  made  some  progress,  and  the  value 
of  labor  begins  to  be  understood,  it  is  presently  dis 
covered  that  to  eat  prisoners,  is  not  the  most  profitable 
use  to  which  they  can  be  put.  Accordingly  their  lives 
are  spared ;  and  they  are  compelled  to  labor  for  the 
benefit  of  their  captors.  Such  is  the  origin  of  Slavery. 

It  was  formerly  a  practice  in  America  to  sell  as 
slave's  such  Indian  prisoners  as  were  captured  during 
the  frequent  wars  waged  with  the  aboriginal  inhabit 
ants.  But  the  great  mass  of  those  unfortunate  per 
sons  held  in  servitude  throughout  the  southern  states, 
derive  their  origin  from  another  source. 

A  Virginian  planter  deduces  the  legitimacy  of  his 
dominion  by  the  follow  ing  process.  Your  great-grand 
mother  being  captured  by  a  certain  African  prince, — 
in  a  war,  undertaken,  doubtless,  for  the  mere  purpose 
of  making  prisoners, — was  sold  upon  the  coast  of 
Guinea  to  a  certain  Yankee  slave-trader ;  and  being 
transported  by  him  to  James  River,  was  there  sold  to 


36  DESPOTISM 

a  certain  tobacco  planter.  In  time,  your  great-grand 
mother  died ;  but  she  left  children,  to  which  as  a  part 
of  her  produce,  the  owner  of  the  mother  was  justly 
entitled.  From  that  owner,  through  diverse  aliena 
tions  and  descents,  the  title  has  passed  to  me ;  and  as 
you  are  descended  from  the  woman  above  referred  to, 
it  is  quite  clear,  how  perfectly  reasonable  and  just  my 
empire  is. 

Whether  in  point  of  logic  and  morals,  the  above 
deduction  is  completely  satisfactory,  is  not  now  the 
question.  The  nature  of  the  master's  claim  is  stated 
here,  only  as  an  assistance  towards  obtaining  a  clear 
er  apprehension  of  the  relations  which  must  grow  out 
of  it. 


SECTION  II. 
General  idea  of  a  Slave-holding  Community. 

Slavery  then  is  a  continuation  of  the  state  of  war. 
It  is  true  that  one  of  the  combatants  is  subdued  and 
bound  ;  but  the  war  is  not  terminated.  If  I  do  not 
put  the  captive  to  death,  this  apparent  clemency  does 
not  arise  from  any  good-will  towards  him,  or  any  ex 
tinction  on  my  part  of  hostile  feelings  and  intentions. 
I  spare  his  life  merely  because  I  expect  to  be  able  to 
put  him  to  a  use  more  advantageous  to  myself.  And 
if  the  captive,  on  the  other  hand,  feigns  submission, 
still  he  is  only  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  escape 
my  grasp,  and  if  possible  to  inflict  upon  me  evils  as 
great  as  those  to  which  I  have  subjected  him. 

War  is  justly  regarded,  and  with  the  progress  of 
civilization  it  comes  every  day  more  and  more  to  be 
regarded,  as  the  very  greatest  of  social  calamities. 
The  introduction  of  slavery  into  a  community,  amounts 
to  an  eternal  protraction  of  that  calamity,  and  a  uni- 


91  AMERICA.  37 

versal  diffusion  of  it  through  the  whole  mass  of  socie 
ty,  and  that  too,  in  its  most  ferocious  form. 

When  a  country  is  invaded  by  a  hostile  army, 
within  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  camp  it 
becomes  impossible  to  make  any  effectual  resistance. 
However  fierce  may  be  the  hate  with  which  they  look 
upon  the  invaders,  the  inhabitants  within  the  range 
of  their  scouting  parties,  are  obliged  to  submit.  They 
are  made  to  furnish  wood,  forage  and  provisions; 
they  are  forced  to  toil  in  the  entrenchment  of  the 
camp;  their  houses  are  liable  to  be  ransacked  and 
plundered,  and  their  women  to  be  subjected  to  the 
lusts  of  the  soldiers.  Upon  certain  emergencies,  the 
ablest  bodied  among  them  will  be  armed,  surrounded 
.by  foreign  squadrons,  and  obliged  to  fight  against 
their  own  countrymen.  But  though  plundered  with 
out  mercy,  and  liable  to  the  most  frightful  injuries, 
yet  as  their  services  are  valuable,  and  even  necessary 
to  the  invaders,  they  must  be  allowed  to  retain  the 
means  of  sustaining  existence ;  and  if  under  all  the 
discouragements  to  which  they  are  subjected,  they 
neglect  or  refuse  to  cultivate  their  fields,  they  must 
be  driven  to  work  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  Jest  the 
invaders  might  suffer  from  their  negligence,  and  fall 
short  of  forage  and  provisions. 

Now  every  plantation  in  the  slave  states  is  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  seat  of  a  little  camp,  which  over 
awes  and  keeps  in  subjection  the  surrounding  peasan 
try.  The  master  claims  and  exercises  over  his  slaves 
all  the  rights  of  war  above  described,  and  others  yet 
more  terrible.  Consider  too  that  this  infliction  is  not 
limited  to  a  single  neighborhood,  as  in  the  case  of  an 
invading  army,  but  is  scattered  and  diffused  over  the 
whole  extent  of  the  country ;  nor  is  it  temporary  as 
in  the  other  case,  but  constant  and  perpetual.  It  is 
by  taking  a  view  like  this,  that  we  are  enabled  to  form 
a  primary,  general,  outline  idea  of  the  social  condition 
of  a  slave-holding  community. 
4 


38  DESPOTISM 

SECTION  III. 

The  Empire  claimed  by  the  Master. 

The  relation  of  master  and  slave,  as  we  may  con 
clude  from  the  foregoing  statements,  is  a  relation 
purely  of  force  and  terror.  Its  only  sanction  is  the 
power  of  the  master  ;  its  best  security,  the  fears  of  the 
slave.  It  bears  no  resemblance  to  any  thing  like  a 
social  compact.  Mutual  interest,  faith,  truth,  hon 
esty,  duty,  affection,  good-will,  are  not  included,  in 
any  form  whatever,  under  this  relation. 

But  let  us  descend  somewhat  into  particulars,  and 
inquire  more  specifically  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
empire  claimed  by  the  master. 

That  empire  is  the  most  absolute  and  comprehen 
sive  which  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  The  master 
considers  his  slaves  as  existing  solely  for  his  benefit. 
He  has  purchased,  and  he  possesses  them  for  his  own 
sake,  not  for  theirs.  His  sole  object  is  to  obtain  the 
greatest  possible  profit  out  of  them. 

Perhaps  to  obtain  this  greatest  profit,  it  may  be  ne 
cessary  to  feed  them  plentifully,  and  clothe  them  well, 
and  to  allow  them  certain,  intervals  of  rest,  and  other 
like  indulgences.  If  the  master  is  of  that  opinion,  he 
acts  accordingly.  But  in  so  acting  he  merely  pursues 
his  own  advantage.  If  he  has  adopted  the  contrary 
opinion,  if  he  imagines  that  he  can  save  more  by  re 
trenchment  than  he  can  make  by  outlay,  in  that  case 
he  cuts  down  the  allowance  of  rest,  food,  and  clothing, 
and  endeavours  to  supply  the  deficiency  by  the  stim 
ulus  of  the  lash.  It  is  a  mere  matter  of  calculation 
either  way;  not  a  question  of  morals,  but  a  mere 
problem  of  domestic  economy.  The  slaves  are  not 
thought  of  as  sentient  beings,  but  as  machines  to  be 
kept  in  profitable  operation. 

One  who  visits  a  slave-holding  community,  for  the 
first  time,  if  he  have  any  feeling  of  humanity  and 
any  spirit  of  observation,  is  puzzled  and  shocked,  by 


IN   AMERICA.  39 

what  appears  to  him  a  series  of  distressing  uncongrui- 
ties.  Men  who  in  their  relations  towards  those  whom 
they  acknowledge  as  fellow-citizens,  fulfil  with  promp 
titude  and  exactness  all  the  duties  of  benevolence  and 
justice,  in  their  conduct  towards  their  slaves,  often 
seem  destitute  of  all  human  sympathies. 

This  course  of  action  results  from  the  very  position 
of  a  master  ;  and  men  naturally  of  the  most  benevo 
lent  dispositions,  become  reconciled  to  it  by  force  of 
custom  and  education.  The  soldier,  frank,  generous, 
warm-hearted,  ready  to  share  his  last  dollar  with  his 
comrade,  from  the  moment  he  enters  an  enemy's 
country  becomes  a  violent,  fierce,  and  brutal  robber, 
who  plunders  whenever  he  has  opportunity,  without 
hesitation  or  remorse. 

It  is  exactly  so  with  the  master  of  slaves.  His  con 
duct  towards  his  fellow-citizens,  and  towards  his  ser 
vants,  is  regulated  by  rules  and  considerations  totally 
distinct.  In  making  this  distinction,  he  is  supported 
by  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  the  dogmas  of  the  church; 
upheld  by  the  example  and  countenance  of  his  friends 
and  neighbors ;  and  encouraged  by  the  approbation, 
open  or  implied,  of  all  the  world.  If  nobody  finds 
fault  with  his  conduct,  why  should  he  think  of  chang 
ing  it?  Why  relinquish  a  lordship  and  a  revenue, 
which  every  body  tells  him  he  does  right  to  retain  ? 

The  value  of  this  lordship,  and  the  amount  of  this 
revenue,  would  be  nothing  at  all,  if  instead  of  looking 
steadfastly,  and  with  a  single  eye,  to  his  own  interest, 
the  master  should  trouble  himself  about  the  well-be 
ing  of  his  slaves.  Their  well-being  evidently  requires 
the  liberty  on  their  part  of  pursuing  their  own  hap 
piness,  according  to  their  own  notions  of  it ;  and  it 
clearly  demands  the  disposal  at  their  pleasure  of  the 
entire  fruits  of  their  own  labor.  That  is,  it  requires 
the  complete  cessation  of  the  master's  empire.  But  it 
is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  at 
the  same  time ;  so  that  whoever  wishes  to  retain  the 
character  of  a  master,  and  to  exercise  the  preroga 
tives  which  that  character  confers  and  implies,  is 


40  DESPOTISM 

driven,  by  an  invincible  necessity,  to  disregard  the  well- 
being  of  his  slaves,  and  to  consider  solely  his  own 
profit.  Whether  indeed  that  profit  is  best  promoted 
by  retaining  the  character  of  master  at  all ;  whether 
the  master's  interest,  upon  a  full  and  comprehensive 
view  of  it,  might  not  best  be  advanced  by  ceasing  to 
be  a  master,  is  a  question  not  now  under  discussion. 

But  in  communities  where  all  are  free,  how  many 
are  there,  who  regard  any  interest  except  their  own  ? 
And  wherein  is  the  particular  evil  of  slavery  in  this 
respect  ? 

The  peculiar  evil  of  slavery  consists  in  the  very 
fact,  that  the  slaves  do  not  stand  in  this  particular  on 
a  level  with  other  men;  they  are  not  allowed  to 
pursue  their  own  interest.  Not  only  is  the  well-be 
ing  of  the  slaves  disregarded  by  the  masters,  it  is 
deliberately  sacrificed..  Left  to  themselves,  like  other 
men,  they  would  pursue  their  own  happiness,  with 
success,  less  or  greater.  But  their  own  happiness  is 
a  thing  they  are  not  suffered  to  pursue  ;  and  if  yield 
ing  to  the  instinctive  impulses  of  nature,  they  make 
the  attempt,  they  are  thwarted  and  driven  back  at 
every  turn.  Their  own  comfort  or  pleasure  is  a  thing 
they  are  not  allowed  to  think  of  at  all ;  or  to  think  of 
only  at  the  risk  of  the  lash. 

In  free  communities,  selfishness  itself  is  enlisted 
into  the  service  of  benevolence.  In  order  to  obtain 
favors,  it  is  necessary  to  confer  them.  Mutual  ser 
vices  are  secured  by  the  attraction  of  mutual  interest. 
But  mutuality  is  a  thing  which  slavery  knows  not. 
The  master  does  not  say,  "  Work  for  me,  and  I  will 
give  you  in  return  wherewith  to  feed  and  clothe 
yourself  and  family."  "  Work  for  me,"  he  says,  "  or 
I  will  torture  you  with  the  lash ! "  •  If  the  master 
supplies  the  slave  with  food  and  clothes,  he  does  riot 
do  it  by  way  of  compensation  for  labor.  It  is  a  ne 
cessary  expenditure,  grudgingly  laid  out,  in  order  to 
keep  these  human  machines  in  motion.  So  far  from 
being  in  the  nature  of  a  bargain  or  contract,  slavery 
is  nothing  but  violence  upon  one  side,  and  compulsive 
obedience  upon  the  other. 


IN    AMERICA.  41 

SECTION  IV. 

Means  of  enforcing  the  Master's  Empire. 

To  sustain  an  empire  of  the  kind  above  described, 
it  is  evident  that  the  most  vigorous  means  must  be  es 
sential. 

The  means  employed  are  chiefly  three,  to  wit :  force, 
terror )  fraud;  and  accord  ing  to  the  different  tempers,  tal 
ents,  habits  and  notions  of  the  master,  one  or  the  other 
of  these  three  means,  is  made  the  key  of  his  system. 

I.  FORCE.  Those  masters  whose  tempers  are  harsh, 
violent,  and  brutal,  especially  those  who  have  never 
been  softened  by  education,  and  who  are  strangers  to 
the  refinements  of  cultivated  life,  and  others  who  are 
endowed  with  a  firm,  decided  vigor  that  moves  direct 
ly  to  the  point,  and  by  the  shortest  way,  rely  princi 
pally  upon  force. 

Is  the  slave  late  in  coming  into  the  field?  Twenty 
lashes.  Is  he  idle  ?  Thirty  lashes.  Does  he  disobey 
or  neglect  an  order  ?  Forty  lashes.  Does  he  negligently 
waste  or  destroy  his  master's  property  ?  Fifty  lashes. 
Is  he  detected  in  a  lie  ?  Sixty  lashes.  Is  he  strongly 
suspected  of  theft  ?  Seventy  lashes.  Does  he  say 
or  do  any  thing  that  can  be  construed  into  insolence  ? 
Eighty  lashes.  Is  he  guilty  of  the  slightest  act  of 
insubordination  ?  One  hundred  lashes.  Does  he  ven 
ture  to  run  away  ?  Let  him  be  pursued  by  men  and 
dogs,  disabled  by  small  shot,  and  so  soon  as  he  is  ta 
ken,  be  flogged  till  he  faints,  then  be  worked  in  chains, 
locked  up  every  night,  and  kept  on  half  allowance,  till 
his  spirits  are  broken,  and  he  becomes  obedient  and 
contented.  Should  he  dare,  upon  any  occasion,  to  offer 
any  resistance  ?  Let  him  be  shot,  stabbed,  beat  to  the 
ground  with  a  club,  and  should  he  not  be  killed  in  the 
process,  as  soon  as  he  is  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able 
to  stand,  let  him  be  subjected  to  all  the  discipline  men 
tioned  in  the  preceding  sentence,  and  in  addition,  be 
flogged  every  night,  for  thirty  days  in  succession. 
4* 


42  DESPOTISM 

Such  is  a  brief  specimen  of  this  system  of  plantation 
management,  which  some  call  cruel,  but  which  those 
who  follow  it,  merely  describe  as  vigorous  and  efficient. 

II.  TERROR.  But  there  are  many  men.  naturally  soft 
hearted,  who  cannot  look  without  some  feelings  of 
sympathetic  pain,  or  at  least  of  instinctive  disgust, 
upon  the  body  of  an  old  man,  or  a  woman  perhaps, 
cut  up  with  the  lash,  and  scored  with  bloody  gashes. 
The  screams  and  outcries  of  the  victims  affect  them 
disagreeably.  They  lack  that  harsh,  unfeeling  vigor, 
that  stern  promptitude,  tyranny's  steadiest  and  most 
efficient  support.  They  endeavor  to  avoid  the  actual 
use  of  the  whip,  and  to  govern  as  far  as  possible,  by 
the  fear  of  it.  They  utter  most  tremendous  threats, 
and  strive  to  supply  by  bitter  and  alarming  words,  the 
place  of  action.  But  words,  when  they  are  found  to 
be  intended  only  as  scare-crows,  soon  lose  their  effica 
cy.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  maintain  a  steady 
stream,  and  the  master  who  governs  upon  this  wordy 
plan,  soon  comes  to  keep  both  himself  and  his  slaves, 
in  a  constant  state  of  irritation  and  ill  feeling,  by  a 
process  of  fault-finding,  scolding  and  threats,  which 
becomes  a  habit,  and  goes  on  from  morning  to  night, 
from  day  to  day,  from  one  year's  end  to  another. 

The  slaves,  who  are  thus  made  to  feel  every  mo 
ment  the  weight  of  tyranny,  and  the  humiliation  of 
servitude,  contract  towards  these  snarling  masters,  the 
sincerest  hate  ;  and  from  hating,  being  soon  satisfied 
that  with  all  their  bluster,  they  have  not  the  vigor  to 
act  up  to  their  threats,  they  come  presently  to  despise 
them.  Whether  they  do  well  or  ill,  it  is  much  the 
same,  the  master  scolds  on  by  habit ;  but  though  he 
scolds,  as  yet  he  does  not  punish ;  and  the  bolder  among 
the  slaves  soon  begin  to  try  experiments  upon  his  pa 
tience.  They  are  encouraged  by  the  impunity  of  first 
transgressions  to  take  greater  and  greater  liberties. 
Their  example  finds  imitators,  till  presently  the  whole 
plantation  falls  into  a  state  of  idleness  and  insubordi- 
nacy,  which  cannot  be  longer  overlooked  or  endured. 

The  master  must  now  give  up  the  hope  of  revenue 


IN    AMERICA.  43 

from  his  slaves,  or  he  must  re-establish  his  authority. 
He  begins  with  moderate  whippings.  But  his  first  at 
tempts  in  this  way  are  laughed  at,  or  perhaps  resisted. 
He  is  alarmed  and  inflamed.  Anger  and  fear  supply 
a  vigor  he  does  not  naturally  possess.  He  storms  and 
raves ;  flogs  without  mercy ;  shoots,  stabs,  chains,  im 
prisons,  starves,  tortures.  His  nature  seems  to  be 
changed,  and  for  a  while  he  acts  out  the  tyrant,  in  the 
most  savage  and  vindictive  spirit  of  despotism.  The 
slaves  bend  and  bow  beneath  this  whirlwind  of  tyran 
ny.  The  most  turbulent  and  unmanageable, — those 
of  them  at  least,  who  have  escaped  with  their  lives, — 
are  sent  off  and  sold  ;  arid  presently  things  subside  in 
to  their  former  state.  The  master  grows  ashamed  of 
his  violence,  and  perhaps  endures  some  twinges  of  re 
morse  ;  the  lash  is  disused,  and  the  tongue  supplies  its 
place.  The  discipline  of  the  plantation  is  presently 
relaxed ;  the  servants  become  idle  and  insubordinate  as 
before;  but  this  flattering  calm  cannot  be  relied  upon; 
a  new  storm  of  tyranny  is  secretly  brewing,  which 
will  burst  at  a  moment  when  it  is  least  expected. 

III.  FRAUD.  There  are  some  masters,  who  pride 
themselves  upon  their  cunning  and  superior  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  who  make  considerable  use  of  fraud, 
in  the  management  of  their  slaves ;  but  this  is  a  means 
employed  only  occasionally,  and  of  which  the  efficacy 
is  not  great. 

One  of  the  most  usual  applications  of  it,  is  the  at 
tempt  to  take  advantage  of  the  religious  feelings  of 
the  slaves,  and  to  impress  them  with  the  idea,  that 
obedience,  honesty  towards  their  masters,  humble  sub 
mission,  and  other  like  plantation  virtues,  are  religious 
duties,  which  God  commands,  under  the  penalty  of 
damnation. 

This  stratagem  is  chiefly  practised  by  slave-holding 
clergymen  and  church  members.  The  religious  peo 
ple  of  the  South  have  been  at  the  pains  of  preparing 
a  slave  catechism  ;  in  some  places  they  have  establish 
ed  slave  Sunday  schools;  and  meetings  for  slave- 
worship  are  regularly  held.  The  immediate  agents 


44  DESPOTISM 

in  these  proceedings,  are  generally  men  of  good  in 
tentions,  but  of  very  feeble  understandings.  They 
are  mere  tools  in  the  hands  of  crafty  hypocrites.  The 
motive  of  their  labors  is  doubtless  the  spiritual  welfare 
of  the  slaves  ;  but  those  by  whom  they  are  supported 
and  encouraged,  however  tender  a  regard  they  may 
have  for  the  salvation  of  their  own  souls,  look  upon 
religion  among  slaves  merely  as  a  means  of  plantation 
discipline ;  and  please  themselves  with  the  idea  that 
the  more  religious  their  slaves  are,  the  easier  they  may 
be  managed. 

The  agents  employed  in  this  double  service  of  Chris 
tianity  and  despotism,  often  succeed  in  kindling  a 
warm  spirit  of  devotion  in  the  hearts  of  the  slaves  j 
but  they  have  often  occasion  to  deplore  the  inconsist 
ency,  the  back-sliding,  the  delusion  of  their  converts, 
who  cannot  be  made  to  realize  in  its  full  extent,  the 
enormous  sinfulness  of  any  attempt  to  elude  that  ty 
ranny  under  which  providence  requires  them  patient 
ly,  and  even  joyfully  to  submit. 

Deeply  sympathizing  with  the  sad,  and  almost  an 
gry  feelings,  with  which  these  pious  people  are  accus 
tomed  to  lament  the  small  success  of  their  labors,  and 
to  accuse  that  stony-heartedness  and  inherent  deprav 
ity  which  prevents  even  the  converted  slaves  from  at 
taining  to  the  perfection  of  humility  and  obedience, 
the  remark  nevertheless  may  with  all  due  deference, 
be  permitted, — that  so  long  as  these  pious  teachers  are 
able  to  construe  the  generous  precepts  of  the  gospel 
into  an  apology  and  a  justification  for  tyranny,  it  can 
not  be  considered  very  surprising  that  their  pupils 
among  the  slaves,  should  instinctively  acquire  the  art 
of  reconciling  with  Christian  patience  and  submission, 
any  and  every  means,  whereby  they  can  shake  off, 
alleviate,  or  elude  the  usurped  authority  of  their  mas 
ters. 

But  this  piece  of  pious  fraud  is  falling  into  bad  odor 
at  the  South.  It  has  been  found  that  religion  causes 
an  excitement  among  the  slaves,  both  dangerous  and 
troublesome.  The  rascals  preach  and  pray  when  they 


IN    AMERICA.  45 

ought  to  be  working.  Besides,  that  religious  enthusi 
asm,  which  kindles  so  readily  in  the  most  ignorant  as 
well  as  the  most  cultivated  minds,  gives  rise  to  a  dan 
gerous  exaltation  of  soul  which  makes  the  subjects 
of  it  obstinate  and  unmanageable.  Religion  once 
awakened  in  such  savage  and  untaught  bosoms,  is  apt 
to  degenerate  into  a  superstitious  fanaticism.  The 
gifted  and  the  artful  begin  to  see  visions,  and  to  dream 
dreams.  They  are  not  content  with  being  hearers 
and  pupils,  they  aspire  to  be  speakers  and  teachers. 
In  their  sermons  and  exhortations,  it  is  the  vices,  the 
luxury,  the  cruelty,  the  wickedness  of  the  masters, 
upon  which  they  principally  dwell,  and  whence  they 
draw  examples  and  illustrations  ;  and  who  knows  but 
some  one  more  enraptured  than  the  rest,  may  imagine 
himself  called,  like  Moses  of  old,  to  smite  the  task 
master,  and  to  lead  forth  the  oppressed  children? 

For  these  reasons  the  bible  has  been  proscribed  at 
the  South,  as  an  incendiary  publication ;  a  book  not 
fit  for  slaves  to  read  or  hear.  In  some  parts  of  the 
country  the  catechism  is  looked  upon  with  almost  equal 
suspicion ;  and  many  masters  forbid  their  slaves  to 
hear  any  preacher,  black  or  white,  since  they  consider 
religion  upon  a  plantation  as  quite  out  of  place,  a  thing 
dangerous  to  the  master's  authority,  and  therefore  not 
to  be  endured  in  the  slave. 

Another  stratagem,  occasionally  employed,  when  it 
is  desired  to  stimulate  the  efforts  of  the  slaves,  is  the 
distribution  of  little  prizes  among  those  who  accom 
plish  the  greatest  labor  in  the  shortest  time.  This 
contrivance  works  wonderfully  well  for  a  few  days ; 
but  as  soon  as  it  is  discovered  who  are  the  ablest  work 
men,  the  emulation  is  confined  to  them,  and  the  greater 
number,  who  have  no  chance  to  win  the  prize,  pres 
ently  relapse  into  their  former  apathy.  Besides,  this 
distribution  of  prizes,  is  apt  to  give  rise  among  the 
slaves  to  the  inconvenient  notion,  that  they  ought  to 
be  paid  for  working,  and  the  moment  it  ceases,  they 
work  more  grudgingly,  unwillingly  and  negligently 
than  ever.  Moreover  it  is  expensive;  in  the  minds  of 
most  planters,  a  decisive  objection  against  it. 


46  DESPOTISM 

But  there  are  cases  when  force  and  terror  cannot  be 
employed,  or  fail  to  answer  the  purpose,  and  where 
stratagem  is  necessarily  resorted  to.  The  most  com 
mon  of  these,  cases,  are  the  detection  and  prevention 
of  theft,  and  the  recovery  of  runaways. 

Upon  these  occasions,  the  most  respectable  and  re 
ligious  masters  do  not  hesitate  to  descend  to  every  pet 
ty  art  of  fraud  and  falsehood.  They  have  hired  spies 
and  informers  among  the  slaves ;  they  blacken  their 
own  faces,  and  lurk  in  disguise  about  the  cabins,  peep 
ing  through  the  cracks,  and  listening  at  the  doors. 
They  lure  the  fugitives  back  into  their  power,  by  the 
most  ample  promises  of  pardon,  which  they  break  with 
as  little  hesitation  as  they  make  them.  Not  uncom 
monly  they  attempt  to  take  advantage  of  the  supersti 
tious  ignorance  of  the  slaves,  and  pretend  to  magical 
and  supernatural  powers,  in  hopes  of  frightening  the 
culprit  into  confession.  They  exult  over  the  success 
of  these  fraudulent  arts ;  and  in  all  transactions  with 
their  slaves,  their  total  want  of  respect  for  their  own 
word  has  given  ample  occasion  for  the  proverb  com 
mon  among  the  unprivileged  class,  which  describes 
white  men  as  "mighty  uncertain." 

Of  the  three  principal  means  above  enumerated,  and 
briefly  explained,  upon  which  the  sustentation  of  the 
slave-master's  empire  depends,  it  is  evident  that  the 
first  involves  the  second:  for  the  surest  way  of  striking 
a  deep  terror  into  the  heart  is,  to  punish  every  trans 
gression  with  a  stern  and  unrelenting  severity. 

It  accordingly  happens  that  those  who  act  upon  this 
plan  not  only  have  the  least  trouble  upon  their  planta 
tions,  but  are  often  comparatively  popular,  so  to  speak, 
with  their  servants.  The  certainty  of  punishment 
greatly  diminishes  the  necessity  of  its  frequent  inflic 
tion.  The  slaves  know  exactly  what  to  expect;  how 
far  they  can  go ;  and  what  is  the  limit  they  cannot 
safely  transgress.  If  the  rule  is  an  iron  one,  it  is  never 
theless  steady  and  sure.  It  does  not  partake  of  that 
uncertainty,  which  besides  being  a  dangerous  tempta 
tion,  is  in  itself  one  of  the  greatest  of  evils.  Slaves 


IN    AMERICA.  47 

are  like  other  men;  and  in  general,  they  far  prefer  to 
take  a  punishment,  and  have  it  over,  to  being  perpetu 
ally  scolded,  threatened,  cursed  and  stormed  at,  even 
though  there  may  be  hope  that  the  storm  will  end  in 
words,  and  pass  over  without  raining  blows. 
/J3ut  this  regular  and  systematic  discipline,  resem 
bling  the  despotic  precision  of  a  well  drilled  army,  is 
to  be  found  only  upon  a  very  few  plantations.  Most 
masters  and  most  overseers  are  too  negligent,  or  too 
good  humored  for  their  business,  or  else  are  ignorant  of 
the  real  nature,  and  only  sure  support  of  the  authority 
they  exercise.  They  overlook  some  offences  because 
they  do  not  want  the  trouble  of  punishment;  some  they 
permit  to  go  unnoticed,  because  they  hate  to  flog  a  wo 
man,  or  a  child  ;  some  allowances  they  make  for  the 
petulance  of  old  age,  or  the  hot  temper  of  youth.  But 
every  liberty  that  goes  unpunished  is  made  a  pretence 
for  yet  greater  liberties  ;  the  slaves,  always  eager  and 
watchful  to  regain  any  particle  of  freedom,  perceive 
in  an  instant,  and  with  unerring  sagacity,  every  indi 
cation  of  weakness,  or  want  of  vigor  on  the  part  of 
their  master ;  they  artfully  break,  now  this  link,  and 
now  that,  from  their  chains;  till  at  length,  beginning 
to  feel  something  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  their  "  inso 
lence,"  to  use  the  master's  phrase,  becomes  intolera 
ble,  and  waking  from  his  dream  of  indulgence  and 
good  nature,  their  despot  is  obliged  to  vindicate  his 
authority,  and  to  repress  the  licentiousness  of  his  slaves, 
by  a  sudden  outbreak  of  violence  and  cruelty,  which, 
however  he  may  excuse  it  by  the  plea  of  necessity,  he 
cannot  think  of,  in  his  sober  moments,  without  some 
disagreeable  feelings  of  self-condemnation. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  greater  part  of  Southern  planta 
tions  are  the  scenes  of  a  constant  struggle  ;  idleness, 
encroachments,  a  passive  resistance  upon  one  side ; 
negligence  and  yielding  first,  then  passion,  violence 
and  cruelty  upon  the  other. 


48  DESPOTISM 

SECTION  V. 
Means  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  slaves. 

We  come  now  more  minutely  to  consider,  with  what 
feelings  the  slaves  look  upon  their  own  lot,  and  what 
resistance  they  make  to  the  usurped  authority  of  their 
masters.  For  by  the  very  constitution  of  human  na 
ture,  it  happens  of  necessity,  that  such  an  authority 
must  be  resisted,  in  some  shape  or  other. 

As  to  escaping  from  a  condition  to  which  they  seem 
to  have  been  born,  and  in  which  they  are  held  by  the 
joint  interest,  real  or  supposed,  of  all  the  members  of 
the  privileged  class,  that  is,  of  all  those  who  make  and 
enforce  the  laws,  and  who  alone  possess  knowledge, 
wealth  and  influence  in  the  community  ; — such  a  de 
liverance  appears  impossible,  and  rarely  enters  into 
their  thoughts.  It  is  true  that  running  away  is  ex 
tremely  frequent  ;  but  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  the  runaway  is  speedily  retaken  and  severe 
ly  punished ;  and  the  attempt  is  generally  made,  not 
with  any  hope  of  ultimate  escape,  but  as  a  means  of 
eluding  for  the  moment  some  threatened  misery,  which 
the  unhappy  fugitive  has  not  the  courage  to  face. 

However,  if  a  door  were  opened  for  their  escape  ;  if 
by  any  circumstance  they  were  induced  to  entertain 
the  idea  of  it,  and  if  that  idea  budded  into  hope,  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  they  would  stickle,  or  hesitate  at 
any  means,  however  horrible,  that  seemed  necessary 
or  convenient,  towards  the  accomplishment  of  that 
great  end.  Prisoners  of  war,  if  they  can  but  take  their 
guards  at  unawares,  are  accustomed  to  stab  them  with 
their  own  bayonets,  and  by  that  bloody  means,  to  break 
away.  Captives,  such  as  slaves  are,  must  be  expected 
to  act  upon  the  same  ideas ;  but  with  a  promptitude 
the  readier,  and  a  hate  the  more  earnest,  in  proportion 
to  their  longer  restraint  and  their  greater  provocation. 
When  has  the  master  respected  the  person  of  his  slaves? 
Would  he  hesitate  one  moment  to  stab,  shoot,  hang,  or 


IN    AMERICA.  49 

burn  the  best  beloved  of  his  servants,  if  he  supposed 
that  servant's  life  inconsistent  with  his  safety,  or  with 
the  security  of  that  tyrannical  empire,  upon  which  de 
pends  his  condition  of  master  ?  Let  there  be  the  whis 
per  of  an  insurrection,  and  the  old  trees  of  the  plant 
ation,  shall  dance  with  dying  men  strung  thick  as 
acorns.  This  the  slaves  know  ;  and  knowing  it,  what 
wonder,  when  the  desperate  project  of  insurrection  is 
resorted  to,  what  wonder,  if  they  grant  no  mercy  where 
they  can  expect  none  ?  What  wonder,  if  with  the  tor 
ture  of  death  by  a  slow  fire,  or  by  some  other  means 
equally  cruel,  before  their  eyes,  they  feel  no  clemency  1 
What  wonder,  if  they  steel  their  hearts  to  pity,  and 
emulate  their  masters  in  bloody  cruelties  and  barbar 
ous  revenge  ?  In  so  doing,  they  merely  practise  a  les 
son  they  have  been  all  their  lives  learning  ;  all  their 
lives,  the  sword  has  been  pointed  at  their  hearts,  and 
if  they  in  any  way  succeed  in  grasping  it  by  the  hilt, — 
what  wonder  if  they  use  it  ? 

If  it  were  possible  to  speak  otherwise  than  seriously 
upon  so  grave  a  matter,  it  would  be  difficult  to  point 
out  any  thing  more  ridiculous  than  the  frantic  fear, 
the  panic  terror,  the  ineffable  alarm  spread  throughout 
the  South,  by  the  slightest  suspicion  of  insurrection 
among  the  slaves.  That  the  women  and  children 
should  be  terrified,  is  natural  enough  ;  but  that  men, 
men  of  violence  and  blood,  accustomed  to  go  their 
daily  rounds  with  the  pistol  in  one  hand  and  the  whip 
in  the  other,  men  who  have  every  advantage  on  their 
side  with  the  single  exception  of  justice, — an  exception 
however,  which  they  affect  to  deny  arid  disregard ; — 
that  such  men  should  stagger  and  turn  pale  at  the 
mere  report  of  a  distant  insurrection,  can  only  be,  be 
cause  a  guilty  conscience  disturbs  their  reason,  and 
frights  away  their  courage. 

Do  they  not  know  the  stake  for  which  they  play? 
Have  they  not  considered  the  conditions  of  the  game  1 
What ! — Do  they  entertain  the  puerile  notion,  that  an 
eternal  war  can  be  waged,  and  all  the  blows,  the 
thrusts,  the  cuts,  the  wounds,  the  danger,  be  only  on 
5 


60  DESPOTISM 

one  side?  Is  it  so  terrible  and  atrocious  a  thing,  that 
my  enemy  dares  to  struggle  in  my  grasp?  What 
though  I  have  him  on  the  ground,  my  knee  upon  his 
breast,  and  a  dagger  at  his  throat,  is  it  so  strange  that 
even  in  that  position,  still  he  resists,  and  strives  to  push 
his  weapon  to  my  heart? 

Slavery  being  in  its  nature,  a  permanent  state  of  war, 
although  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  masters  re 
strains  the  slaves  for  the  most  part  to  an  apparent  sub 
mission,  yet  occasional  outbreaks  must  from  time  to 
time  be  expected.  The  ignorance  in  which  the  slaves 
are  kept,  makes  them  incapable  of  perceiving  the  utter 
hopelessness  of  success ;  and  there  are  some  hot  tempers, 
and  enthusiastic  minds,  which,  though  they  did  per 
ceive  it,  would  still  be  ready  to  risk  any  thing  and  every 
thing,  for  the  most  trifling  chance  of  freedom  and  re 
venge.  The  danger  from  these  outbreaks  is  extremely 
small.  They  will  cost  the  masters  now  and  then  a  few 
lives ;  but  that  is  the  fortune  of  war,  and  those  brave 
soldiers  who  can  slaughter  the  enemy  with  such  per 
fect  indifference,  if  not  with  absolute  gusto,  ought  to  be 
able  to  lose  a  few  of  their  own  number,  without  being 
so  wholly  carried  away  with  panic  terror. 

An  intended  rising  requires  preparations,  means,  and 
an  extended  combination,  which  generally  lead  to  its 
detection  before  the  conspirators  are  ready  to  act.  Be 
sides,  it  is  only  under  peculiar  circumstances,  that  any 
thing  of  the  kind  can  be  attempted.  The  slaves  are 
so  much  in  the  power,  and  at  the  mercy  of  their  mas 
ters,  that  they  seldom  venture  upon  any  thing  like  vio 
lent  opposition  ;  they  content  themselves,  for  the  most 
part,  with  a  passive  resistance. 

The  master  claims,  arid  endeavors  to  possess  him 
self  of  the  whole  time,  capacity  and  labor  of  the  slave. 
The  slave  does  not  venture  openly  to  resist  this  rob 
bery;  but  he  attempts,  by  all  the  silent  and  quiet  means 
in  his  power,  to  evade  it,  to  escape  the  exactions,  and 
to  diminish  the  plunder  of  his  master. 

He  yields  his  time  from  day-light,  until  dark ;  or 
rather  he  seems  to  yield  it ;  for  if  he  be  not  constantly 


IN    AMERICA.  51 

watched,  he  contrives  to  regain  hours  and  moments, 
which  as  he  can  apply  them  to  no  better  use,  he  spends 
in  idleness  or  sleep.  His  capacity  is  a  thing  more  in  his 
own  power.  It  is  in  general,  only  certain  simple  acts 
of  manual  labor  that  can  be  extorted  by  force.  The 
mind  is  free.  A  master  cannot  force  his  slave  to  rea 
son,  to  remember,  or  except  in  certain  cases,  to  hear, 
or  see.  If  he  is  sent  with  a  message,  he  forgets  it.  He 
never  considers  that  if  the  fence  is  broken,  the  cattle 
will  get  among  the  corn :  and  if  they  do,  he  neither  sees 
nor  hears  them.  The  thing  he  is  commanded  to  do, 
that  single  thing  he  does,  and  nothing  else.  The  mas 
ter  would  go  hunting,  and  he  sends  his  slave  to  bring 
his  powder-flask.  The  slave  sees  there  is  no  powder 
in  it; — but  what  is  that  to  him? — he  does  as  he  was 
bid,  and  carries  the  flask.  When  the  gun  is  to  be 
loaded,  it  appears  then  there  is  no  ammunition.  "  Go 
home,"  says  the  master,  "in  the  closet  on  the  upper 
shelf  there  is  a  canister  of  powder  :  fill  the  flask,  and 
bring  it  to  me."  As  it  happens,  there  are  two  canis 
ters,  one  good,  the  other  damaged.  The  slave  takes 
down  the  damaged  canister  first,  and  without  further 
examination  fills  the  flask  with  powder  that  cannot  be 
used,  and  carries  it  to  his  master.  He  is  set  to  plant 
ing  corn.  The  seed,  it  chances,  is  worm-eaten  and  de 
cayed.  What  is  that  to  him  ?  He  goes  on  planting. 
It  is  just  so  in  every  thing  else.  He  neglects  to  exer 
cise  his  reasoning  faculties  at  all.  He  becomes  appa 
rently  as  stupid  and  thoughtless  as  the  mule  he  drives. 
Whatever  capacity  or  understanding  he  may  have,  he 
sinks  it,  hides  it,  annihilates  it,  rather  than  its  fruits 
should  be  filched  from  him  by  his  owner. 

He  is  compelled  to  labor  so  many  hours ;  but  he 
takes  care  to  labor  to  the  least  possible  advantage. 
Nothing  stimulates  him  but  the  fear  of  the  whip ;  and 
under  the  show  of  diligence  he  proceeds  with  the 
greatest  possible  dawdling  and  deliberation.  Is  he  a 
brick-layer?  He  selects  a  brick  with  caution  and 
solemnity ;  he  turns  it  over  a  dozen  times  ;  he  looks 
as  carefully  at  every  side  of  it  as  if  it  were  covered 


52  DESPOTISM 

with  intelligible  hieroglyphics ;  he  feels  the  corners  and 
the  edges ;  he  fits  it  to  its  place ;  removes  it ;  takes 
up  the  mortar;  spreads  and  slowly  arranges  it  with 
his  trowel ;  and  at  last — lays  the  brick. 

In  all  those  processes  which  require  any  thing  of 
skill  or  judgment,  it  is  impossible  to  extort  a  large 
amount  of  labor  from  a  slave.  He  conceals  his  idle 
ness  so  cunningly,  any  attempt  to  drive  him  seems  to 
put  him  into  such  a  flutter  and  confusion,  that  he- 
bungles  or  spoils  his  work,  and  it  becomes  necessary 
that  it  should  be  done  over  again,  allowing  the  work 
man  his  own  time.  The  master  can  only  insist  that 
he  shall  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  work,  but  he 
must  be  content  to  let  him  dally  and  trifle  with  it  as 
he  chooses. 

Hence  it  is  that  slave  labor  is  only  profitable  for 
those  rude  and  simple  processes,  which  demand  no 
thing  but  an  exertion  of  muscular  strength.  A  slave 
may  be  driven  by  the  whip  to  cut  up  grass  with  the 
hoe,  or  to  pick  cotton  with  his  fingers,  nearly  or  quite 
as  fast  as  a  freeman,  who  labors  for  himself ;  but  to 
compel  this  labor  he  must  be  constantly  watched  and 
pressed ;  and  if  the  whip  is  not  used  upon  his  shoul 
ders,  he  must  at  least  see  it  brandished  in  the  air  as  a 
spur  to  his  activity. 

The  day,  from  earliest  dawn  oft  times  till  long  past 
dark  is  all  the  master's ;  but  the  night,  since  the  hu 
man  machine  requires  some  rest  and  relaxation,  is 
principally  yielded  to  the  slave.  He  is  thus  trans 
formed  into  a  nocturnal  animal.  During  the  day,  he 
appears  a  dull,  stupid,  sleepy,  inanimate  thing,  with 
out  sense  or  spirit,  little  better  than  an  idiot,  and 
neither  so  sprightly  nor  so  sensible  as  the  horse  he 
drives.  At  night,  he  becomes  quite  another  creature. 
He  runs  laughing,  singing,  jesting,  to  his  cabin.  With 
his  calabash  of  corn,  he  hastens  to  the  hand  mill;  and 
as  one  grinder  succeeds  another,  the  rumbling  of  the 
stones  is  heard  all  night,  a  doleful  sound,  mixed  with 
the  curses  and  execrations  of  those  who  grind.  But 
it  rumbles  on  with  a  steadiness  which  shows  with 


IN    AMERICA.  53 

what  incessant  industry  the  mill  is  plied,  and  which 
is  evidence  enough  that  those  who  grind,  labor  not 
for  their  master,  but  themselves.  His  corn  cracked 
into  hominy,  or  ground  to  meal,  he  kindles  up  a  fire, 
and  prepares  his  simple,  and  too  often  scanty  supper; 
his  family  gathers  about  the  smoking  dish ;  they  eat 
with  lively  talk  and  laughing  repartee ;  and  as  no 
whip  cracks  in  their  ears,  they  readily  forget  that 
such  a  thing  exists. 

The  meal  ended,  they  do  not  think  of  sleep.  They 
meet  for  talk  and  dances.  The  more  daring  secretly 
mount  their  master's  horses  and  ride  to  visit  their 
cronies  upon  some  neighboring  plantation.  One  goes 
courting,  another  to  see  his  wife  ;  some  with  dogs  and 
axes  hunt  the  opossum,  a  night-walker  like  them 
selves  ;  some  meet  to  preach  and  pray ;  others  prowl 
about  to  see  what  thing  of  value  they  can  lay  their 
hands  upon.  Others  yet,  with  bags  of  stolen  corn  or 
cotton  on  their  heads,  secretly  set  off  to  visit  some 
petty  trader,  who  receives  their  stolen  goods  in  ex 
change  for  whiskey.  Some  have  a  bottle  on  hand, 
and  collecting  their  intimates  about  them,  they  drink, 
and  emboldened  by  the  liquor,  they  discuss  the  con 
duct  of  their  masters,  or  the  overseer,  with  a  keen 
freedom,  a  critical  observation,  an  irony  as  bitter  as  it 
is  just; — happy  if  a  prowling  overseer,  or  some  false 
hearted  spy  does  not  stand  listening,  and  make  them 
presently  pay  the  penalty  of  free  discussion.  It  is 
only  toward  morning  that  they  think  of  sleep ;  and  it 
is  surprising  with  how  little  sleep  they  exist.  But  in 
fact,  their  day  time  is  but  a  lethargy,  during  which, 
though  the  body  be  active,  the  mind  slumbers. 

But  as  the  slaves  become  more  numerous,  and  the 
masters  more  timid  and  more  exacting,  tyranny  takes 
possession  even  of  the  night.  At  dark,  the  slaves  are 
penned  up  like  cattle,  and  forbidden  to  leave  their 
huts,  lest  they  should  employ  themselves  in  plunder, 
or  in  plotting  insurrection  ;  or  if  merely  indulging  in 
sports  and  amusements,  lest  they  should  exhaust  that 
strength  and  vigor,  which  the  master  claims  as  wholly 


54  DESPOTISM 

his.  The  dance  is  forbidden ;  no  merry  laugh  iy 
heard,  no  torch-lights  are  seen  glancing  and  streaming 
on  the  darkness,  or  eclipsing  the  splendor  of  the  moon, 
as  the  slaves  pass  from  one  cabin  to  another.  All  is 
still  as  night  and  tyranny  can  make  it ;  and  if  the 
slaves,  spite  of  this  despotism,  yet  have  their  meet 
ings,  for  talk,  for  drinking,  for  plunder,  or  for  prayer, 
all  are  equally  prohibited,  and  they  steal  forth  with 
slow  and  stealthy  steps,  watchful  and  cautious  as  the 
midnight  wolf. 

The  masters  grievously  complain  of  this  night- 
walking  propensity  on  the  part  of  the  slaves.  Besides 
the  efforts  of  each  planter  to  suppress  it  on.  his  own 
estate,  and  the  barbarous  severity,  with  which  it  is 
customary  to  punish  slaves  for  being  found  visiting 
on  a  plantation  to  which  they  do  not  belong, — public 
patrols  are  established  for  the  purpose  of  arresting, 
flogging,  and  sending  home,  all  slaves  caught  wander 
ing  at  large  without  a  pass,  that  is,  a  written  permission. 

The  two  grand  charges,  however,  brought  against 
the  slaves,  and  which  are  quoted  by  the  masters  as 
decisive  proofs  of  their  lamentable  depravity,  and  to 
tal  destitution  of  all  moral  principle,  are  the  accusa 
tions  of  tying,  and  of  theft. 

1.  The  slaves,  we  are  told,  are  arrant  liars.  They 
lie  for  themselves ;  they  lie  for  each  other ;  and  to  de 
ceive  their  master  or  the  overseer  is  esteemed  among 
them  as  an  action,  not  blameless  only,  but  even 
praiseworthy. 

Well, — why  not?  Falsehood  has  ever  been  con 
sidered  a  lawful  art  of  war ;  and  slavery,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  but  a  state  of  protracted  hostilities.  Do  we 
not  applaud  a  general  for  the  stratagems  and  arts  by 
which  he  deceives,  misleads,  entraps  his  enemy  ?  Do 
not  the  very  masters  themselves,  chuckle  and  exult 
over  the  ingenious  falsehoods  by  which  they  have  de 
tected  a  theft,  or  recovered  a  runaway?  Though 
they  be  tyrants  let  them  use  a  little  philosophy.  Di- 
onysius  did  so,  and  so  did  Pisistratus.  With  their 
masters,  enemies  who  have  seized  them,  and  '  who 


IN    AMERICA.  55 

keep  them  by  force,  the  slaves  are  not  connected  by 
any  ties  of  social  duty.  It  is  a  condition  of  open  war ; 
and  as  in  point  of  strength,  the  slaves  are  wholly 
overmatched,  stratagem  and  falsehood  are  their  only 
resource;  and  if  by  bold  lying,  vociferous  protesta 
tions,  and  cunning  frauds,  they  can  escape  some 
threatened  aggression,  if  they  can  so  secure  some  par 
ticle  of  liberty  from  the  prying  search  and  greedy  grasp 
of  despotism,  why  blame  them  for  acts,  which  in  like 
cases,  all  the  world  has  justified,  and  has  even  exalt 
ed  to  the  character  of  heroism  ? 

In  a  slave,  considered  as  a  slave,  cunning  is  almost 
the  sole  quality  of  mind  which  he  has  any  occasion  to 
exercise ;  and  by  long  practice  it  is  sometimes  carried 
to  an  astonishing  perfection.  Under  an  air  of  the  great 
est  heedlessness  and  stupidity,  and  an  apparent  apathy 
more  than  brutal,  there  is  occasionally  veiled  a  quick 
and  accurate  observation,  a  just  estimate  of  temper  and 
disposition,  lively  and  ardent  feelings,  and  a  loftiness 
of  spirit,  which  some  day  perhaps,  will  burst  its  ordi 
nary  cautious  bounds,  and  terminate  the  life  of  its 
possessor,  by  bullets,  knives,  the  gibbet,  or  the  flames. 

2.  It  is  astonishing  say  the  masters,  how  destitute 
of  all  conscience  these  rascals  are.  The  best  among 
them,  the  most  pious  and  obedient,  are  no  more  to  be 
trusted  than  so  many  foxes.  Even  our  domestic  ser 
vants  steal  every  thing  they  can  touch.  There  must 
be  a  lock  on  every  door,  every  trunk,  every  closet. 
But  even  the  strictest  watchfulness  is  no  match  for 
their  arts ;  and  the  sternest  severities  cannot  repress 
their  spirit  of  plunder. 

The  slaves  it  seems  then,  however  overmastered 
and  subdued,  do  still,  in  a  silent  and  quiet  way,  and 
to  the  best  of  their  ability,  retort  upon  their  masters 
the  aggressions  and  the  robbery  that  are  perpetrated 
on  themselves. 

Property,  it  is  to  be  recollected,  is  a  thing  establish 
ed  among  men,  by  mutual  consent,  and  for  mutual 
convenience.  The  game  I  have  killed,  the  fish  I  have 
caught,  the  vegetables  I  have  cultivated,  are  decided 


66  DESPOTISM 

to  be  mine,  and  are  secured  to  me  by  the  consent  and 
warranty  of  all  my  tribe,  because  the  security  and 
comfort  of  each  member  of  it  requires  for  himself  the 
like  privilege  and  protection.  But  between  slaves  and 
masters,  there  is  no  such  compact,  no  such  consent,  no 
such  mutual  arrangement.  The  masters  claim  all ;  and 
so  far  as  they  are  able,  they  take  all ;  and  if  the  slaves 
by  stealth,  by  art,  by  cunning,  can  secretly  regain 
the  possession  of  some  gleanings  from  the  fruits  of 
their  own  labor,  why  should  they  not  1  It  is  in  their 
eyes  a  spoiling  of  the  Egyptians ;  it  is  a  seizure  and 
appropriation  of  things  to  which  they  surely  have  a 
better  title  than  the  masters. 

Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  in  the  prosecution  of  a  per 
petual  war,  the  plunder  will  be  all  upon  one  side  7 
The  disproportion  is  doubtless  very  great ;  the  aggres 
sors,  as  their  strength  and  means  are  so  superior,  car 
ry  off  rich  trophies  and  abundant  spoils ;  the  con 
quered  are  well  pleased  to  gather  some  fragments,  to 
filch  some  trifles  from  the  over-loaded  stores  of  the 
triumphant  invaders,  who  plundering  upon  a  great 
scale  themselves,  are  yet  astonished  at  the  depravity 
of  those  who  plunder  on  a  small  one.  To  expect, 
as  between  masters  and  slaves  the  virtues  of  truth, 
probity  and  benevolence,  is  ridiculous.  Slavery  re 
moves  the  very  foundation  of  those  virtues. 


SECTION  VI. 

The  treatment  of  American  slaves  considered  as  ani 
mals. 

The  slave-master  desires  to  look  upon  his  slaves  as 
he  does  upon  his  horses ;  to  persuade  himself  that  his 
empire  over  both  is  equally  just ;  and  that  the  claims 
and  rights  of  horses  and  of  slaves,  are  confined  with 
in  the  same  limits. 


IN   AMERICA. 


57 


But  even  in  this  view  of  the  case,  narrow  and  false 
as  it  is,  the  slave-holder  too  often  falls  lamentably 
short  of  what  common  humanity,  and  ordinary  good 
nature  require. 

A  slave  is  an  expensive  animal,  since  he  must  be 
supplied  not  only  with  shelter  and  food,  but  with  fire, 
and  clothing.  There  are  however  several  circum 
stances  in  the  condition  of  the  southern  states,  which 
operate  at  present  to  reduce  these  expenses  to  a  mini 
mum. 

The  houses  of  the  slaves  for  the  most  part,  are  lit 
tle  miserable  log  cabins,  with  chimneys  of  sticks  and 
clay,  without  windows,  and  often  without  a  floor, 
but  one  step  in  advance  of  the  primeval  wigwam. 
They  contain  but  one  room,  in  which  the  wliole  fami 
ly  is  huddled  together  without  any  regard  to  the  pri 
vacies  or  decencies  of  life  ;  nor  are  they  in  any  respect 
superior,  if  indeed  they  are  equal,  to  the  stables  or  the 
cow  house.  The  furniture  is  as  rude  as  the  dwelling, 
and  betokens  the  lowest  state  of  poverty  and  destitu 
tion.  When  these  cabins  have  become  thoroughly 
rotten,  and  ready  to  tumble  to  the  ground,  they  are  re 
built  at  no  other  expense  except  a  few  days  labor  of 
the  plantation  carpenter.  Other  things  have  under 
gone  great  improvements;  but  in  the  construction  and 
comforts  of  a  slave's  cabin,  there  has  been  little  or  no 
change  for  upwards  of  a  century. 

Clothing,  especially  in  the  more  northern  of  the 
slave  states  is  an  expensive  item;  but  as  its  necessity 
in  those  parts  of  the  country  is  the  more  apparent, 
the  good  economy  of  furnishing  a  tolerable  supply  is 
more  generally  acknowledged,  and  the  suffering  of 
the  slaves  from  deficiency  of  clothing,  is  probably 
much  less  than  in  the  more  southern  states,  where  the 
mildness  of  the  climate  encourages  the  masters  to 
stint  the  allowance,  and  where  the  numerous  deaths 
among  the  slaves  from  quinsy,  influenza,  and  pleu 
risy,  are  a  proof  how  insufficiently  they  are  guarded 
against  the  sudden  changes  from  heat  to  cold,  to 
which  the  whole  climate  of  the  United  States  is  so 


58  DESPOTISM 

liable.  The  children,  till  they  reach  the  age  of  twelve 
or  fourteen,  run  about  almost  naked,  being  covered,  if 
at  all,  only  by  an  unwashed  shirt  of  tattered  osna- 
burgs.  Their  sufferings  from  cold  must  sometimes  be 
excessive. 

Firewood  is  still  so  abundant  throughout  all  the 
southern  states,  as  in  most  parts  of  the  country  to 
have  no  exchangable  value ;  or  to  owe  that  value  en 
tirely  to  the  labor  expended  in  preparing  it.  The 
slaves  are  at  liberty  to  take  from  the  woods  on  Sun 
days,  or  by  night,  such  supplies  as  they  choose.  Foi 
the  most  part,  they  carry  it  on  their  heads ;  though 
sometimes  on  Sunday,  they  are  allowed  the  use  of  a 
pair  of  oxen  and  a  cart.  To  save  steps  and  trouble, 
if  they  can  do  it  without  detection,  they  generally 
prefer  to  lay  their  hands  upon  the  first  fence  they 
come  to. 

Very  different  opinions  prevail  in  different  portions 
of  the  southern  states,  as  to  the  quantity  of  food 
which  it  is  necessary  or  expedient  to  allow  a  slave. 
In  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  Tennessee,  where  corn 
and  bacon  are  produced  in  great  abundance,  and 
where  their  value  is  small,  the  slaves  are  allowed  as 
much  coarse  food  as  they  desire ;  and  the  plump  con 
dition  and  buoyant  vivacity  of  the  children  are  an 
evidence  that  they  seldom  suffer  from  hunger. 

In  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  North  Carolina,  where 
corn  is  seldom  worth  above  fifty  cents  the  bushel, 
some  sixteen  bushels  of  it  is  considered  a  competent 
yearly  supply  for  a  slave,  to  which  is  generally  added, 
a  weekly  allowance  larger  or  smaller,  of  fish  or  meat. 

In  the  states  further  south,  which  may  be  properly 
designated  as  the  cotton  growing  states,  where  corn  is 
generally  worth  a  dollar  or  upwards  the  bushel,  and 
where  provisions  of  all  sorts  are  comparatively  scarce 
and  high,  twelve  bushels  of  dry  corn  by  the  year, 
without  any  allowance  of  meat  or  fish,  or  any  thing 
beside,  is  esteemed  a  large  enough  supply  of  food  for 
a  working  hand.  Sweet  potatoes,  are  sometimes  serv 
ed  out  during  the  fall  and  winter  months,  instead  of 


IN    AMERICA.  69 

corn ;  and  on  the  rice  plantations,  broken  or  damaged 
rice  furnishes  the  chief  supply  of  food;  but  whether 
it  be  corn,  potatoes,  or  rice,  the  allowance  is  often 
scanty  enough ;  and  the  starved,  shriveled,  peaked 
condition  of  the  children  upon  many  plantations,  are 
too  evident  proofs  how  cruelly  they  are  stinted. 

With  respect  to  this  subject,  the  following  observa 
tion  is  worthy  of  attention.  A  certain  quantity  of 
food  may  suffice  to  sustain  life,  and  even  strength, 
yet  not  be  enough  to  appease  the  cravings  of  appetite, 
nor  to  stay  or  prevent  the  torments  of  hunger.  Most 
laboring  men  at  the  North,  might  probably  live  and 
enjoy  health,  though  their  daily  food  were  diminished 
in  quantity  one  half,  or  even  more;  yet  this  is  a  sac 
rifice  they  would  very  reluctantly  make ;  and  the  cer 
tainty  of  life  and  health  would  be  no  sufficient  conso 
lation  for  the  gnawings  of  hunger,  and  the  disquie 
tudes  of  an  unsatisfied  appetite? 

It  happens  very  unluckily,  that  the  slaves  in  that 
part  of  the  country  where  they  are  worst  supplied 
with  food  and  clothing,  are  yet  subjected  to  the  se 
verest  and  most  unremitting  labors. 

In  Missouri,  Kentucky,  North  Carolina,  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  except  in  those  limited  tracts  in  which 
the  culture  of  tobacco  is  pursued,  there  are  considerable 
intervals  in  every  year,  when  the  labor  of  the  slaves 
is  little  needed,  and  when  the  tasks  imposed  are  suf 
ficiently  light.  But  the  cultivation  of  tobacco,  and 
still  more,  that  of  rice,  sugar  and  cotton,  is  an  inces 
sant  round  of  labor,  from  one  year's  end  to  the  other. 
These  plants  are  a  long  time  in  coming  to  perfection. 
The  labor  of  securing  the  crop,  and  preparing  it  for 
market,  is  very  great;  and  one  year's  work  is  hardly 
ended,  before  it  is  time  to  begin  upon  the  next.  Win 
ter  or  Summer,  there  is  no  rest  nor  relaxation  from 
constant,  steady  toil. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  physical 
condition  of  the  slaves  throughout  the  southern  states, 
is  far  inferior  in  every  respect,  to  that  of  the  unfortu 
nate  men,  confined  for  the  punishment  of  their  crimes 


60  DESPOTISM 

in  our  Northern  prisons  and  penitentiaries.  Their 
food  is  less  savoury,  less  abundant,  and  far  less  vari 
ous, — and  a  certain  variety  of  diet  seems  as  essentia 
to  health  as  it  is  agreeable  to  the  taste.  The  work  de 
manded  of  them  is  far  more  fatiguing  and  severe,  the 
time  of  labor  is  longer,  the  clothing  with  which  they  are 
supplied  is  far  less  comfortable ;  and  their  exposure 
far  more  trying.  That  sort  of  discipline  which  we 
have  fixed  upon  as  the  most  terrible  and  exemplary 
punishment  of  crime, — or  rather  a  discipline  much 
more  severe  than  that, — is  the  regular,  constant,  per 
petual  condition  of  a  large  proportion  of  our  fellow- 
countrymen  at  the  south. 

What  has  been  observed  with  respect  to  food,  ap 
plies  with  equal  force  to  physical  condition  in  general. 
That  which  is  sufficient  to  sustain  existence,  is  by  no 
means  sufficient  for  comfort,  or  for  pleasure.  Life 
may  be  supported,  and  protracted  under  such  a  series 
of  privations  that  it  ceases  to  be  any  thing  but  a  con 
tinuity  of  suffering. 

That  the  physical  condition  of  the  slaves  is  far  in 
ferior  on  an  average  to  that  of  the  free,  may  be  made 
evident  by  some  statistical  considerations.  During 
the  fifty  years  from  1790  to  1840,  the  white  popula 
tion  of  the  United  States  had  a  uniform  increase  at 
the  rate  of  thirty-five  per  cent,  in  each  period  of  ten 
years  ;  while  during  the  same  time  the  slave  popula 
tion  increased  at  the  rate  of  only  twenty-nine  per  cent. 
In  the  period  of  ten  years,  from  1830  to  1840,  while 
the  free  population  increased  34.6  per  cent.,  the  slave 
population  increased  only  23.8  per  cent. ;  a  striking 
proof  of  the  alteration  for  the  worse,  in  the  condition 
of  the  slaves,  produced  by  their  transfer  to  the  cotton 
fields  of  the  far  south.  The  increase  of  the  white 
population,  by  immigration  from  abroad,  could  not 
have  amounted,  during  those  ten  years,  to  more  than 
five  per  cent. ;  still  leaving  a  balance  of  increase  over 
the  slave  population  of  more  than  seven  per  cent.  An 
examination  of  the  returns  of  the  recent  census  of 
1850  would  afford  results  not  materially  different. 


IN   AMERICA.  61 

Now  it  is  to  be  recollected  that  there  are  certain 
prudential  checks,  as  they  are  denominated,  constant 
ly  operating  to  retard  the  increase  of  the  white  popu 
lation.  The  extent  to  which  these  checks  operate, 
even  in  those  parts  of  the  country  in  which  the  white 
population  increases  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  will 
be  obvious,  when  it  is  considered,  that  in  the  state  of 
New  York,  as  appears  from  the  results  of  the  State 
census,  in  1825  and  in  1835,  out  of  all  the  women  in 
the  state  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  forty-five, 
that  is,  of  an  age  to  bear  children,  two  fifths  are  un 
married. 

Among  the  slaves,  these  prudential  checks  are  to 
tally  unknown.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  them 
from  yielding  to  the  instincts  of  nature.  Child-bear 
ing  is  stimulated  and  encouraged  by  the  masters,  and 
so  far  as  it  depends  upon  the  mere  production  of  chil 
dren,  the  slave  population  ought  to  increase,  two  fifths 
faster  than  the  free.  Instead  of  doubling  once  in 
twenty-five  years,  it  ought  to  double  once  in  fifteen 
years.  If  the  increase  is  kept  down  to  the  former 
level,  it  is  only  because  disease  and  death  are  busier 
among  the  slaves  than  among  the  free ;  and  as  the 
slaves  escape  all  those  kinds  of  disorders  which  spring 
from  luxury  and  over-indulgence,  this  greater  mortality 
can  only  be  ascribed  to  greater  severity  of  labor,  and 
to  destitution  of  the  physical  supports  of  life. 

It  is  often  argued  that  self-interest  alone  is  enough 
to  make  the  master  attentive  to  the  lives  and  health 
of  his  slaves  ;  on  the  same  principle  that  he  provides 
corn  for  his  horses,  and  fodder  for  his  cattle.  But  that 
provident  and  enlightened  economy  which  makes  a 
present  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  a  future 
greater  loss,  however  it  may  be  generally  recommend 
ed  and  applauded,  is  but  seldom  practised ;  and  he 
who  is  familiar  with  the  domestic  management  of  the 
southern  states,  must  know  that  of  all  places  in  the 
world,  it  is  least  practised  there. 

An  anecdote  is  related  of  a  Virginian  planter,  who 
discharged  his  overseer,  because  sufficient  cattle  had 
6 


62  DESPOTISM 

not  died  during  the  winter  to  furnish  leather  enough 
to  supply  the  slaves  with  shoes.  This  story  though 
perhaps  a  little  exaggerated,  will  serve  to  give  an  idea 
of  the  domestic  economy  of  the  south;  and  he  who 
knows  how  many  mules  and  horses  yearly  drop  in 
the  furrow,  through  starvation,  over-work,  and  the 
abusive  treatment  which  the  slaves,  emulous  of  their 
masters,,  heap  upon  the  only  creatures  in  their  power; 
he  who  has  seen  the  condition  of  southern  cattle  in 
the  month  of  March,  hundreds  actually  starved  to 
death,  and  those  which  are  alive,  a  mere  anatomy  of 
skin  and  bones,  with  hardly  substance  enough  to  cast 
a  shadow,  searching  with  feeble  steps,  and  woeful 
countenance,  for  a  spear  or  two  of  withered  grass, 
wherewith  to  protract  their  miserable  existence ;  he 
who  has  seen  these  things,  would  not  much  care  to 
have  his  life  or  his  sustenance  dependent  upon  the 
good  economy  of  a  management  so  utterly  thriftless 
and  unfeeling. 


SECTION  VII. 

The  treatment  of  American  slaves,  considered  as  men. 

There  are  some  people  whose  sympathies  have  been 
excited  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  who  if  they  can 
only  be  satisfied  that  the  slaves  have  enough  to  eat, 
think  it  is  all  very  well,  and  that  nothing  more  is  to 
be  said,  or  done. 

If 'slaves  were  merely  animals,  whose  only  or  chief 
enjoyment  consisted  in  the  gratification  of  their  bodily 
appetites,  there  would  be  some  show  of  sense  in  this 
conclusion.  But  in  fact,  however  crushed  and  bruti- 
fied,  they  are  still  men^  men  whose  bosoms  beat  with 
the  same  passions  as  our  own;  whose  hearts  swell  with 
the  same  aspirations, — the  same  ardent  desire  to  im- 


IN    AMERICA.  63 

prove  their  condition ;  the  same  wishes  for  what  they 
have  not ;  the  same  indifference  towards  what  they 
have ;  the  same  restless  love  of  social  superiority ;  the 
same  greediness  of  acquisition  ;  the  same  desire  to 
know;  the  same  impatience  of  all  external  control. 

The  excitement  which  the  singular  case  of  Casper 
Hauser  produced  a  few  years  since,  in  Germany,  is 
not  yet,  forgotten.  From  the  representations  of  that 
enigmatical  personage,  it  was  believed  that  those  from 
whose  custody  he  declared  himself  to  have  escaped, 
had  endeavoured  to  destroy  his  intellect,  or  rather  to 
prevent  it  from  being  developed,  so  as  to  detain  him 
forever  in  a  state  of  infantile  imbecility.  This  sup 
posed  attempt  at  what  they  saw  fit  to  denominate,  the 
murder  of  the  soul,  gave  rise  to  great  discussions 
among  the  German  Jurists ;  and  they  soon  raised  it 
into  a  new  crime,  which  they  placed  at  the  very  head 
of  social  enormities. 

It  is  this  very  crime,  "the  murder  of  the  soul,  which 
is  in  the  course  of  continuous  and  perpetual  perpetra 
tion  throughout  the  southern  states  of  the  American 
Union ;  and  that  not  upon  a  single  individual  only, 
but  upon  nearly  one  half  the  entire  population. 

Consider  the  slaves  as  men,  and  the  course  of  treat 
ment  which  custom  and  the  laws  prescribe,  is  an  art 
ful,  deliberate,  and  well -digested  scheme  to  break 
their  spirit;  to  deprive  them  of  courage  and  of  man 
hood  ;  to  destroy  their  natural  desire  for  an  equal  par 
ticipation  in  the  benefits  of  society ;  to  keep  them 
ignorant,  and  therefore  weak ;  to  reduce  them  if  possi 
ble  to  a  state  of  idiocy ;  to  crowd  them  down  to  a 
level  with  the  brutes. 

A  man,  especially  a  civilized  man,  possessed  of  a 
certain  portion  of  knowledge,  and  well  skilled  in  some 
art  or  science,  is  a  much  more  valuable  piece  of  prop 
erty,  and  capable  of  producing  for  his  master  a  far 
greater  revenue,  than  a  mere,  two-legged  human  ani 
mal,  with  all  the  failings  and  defects,  and  none  of  the 
virtues  of  a  savage.  But  if  such  a  slave  is  more 
valuable,  he  is  far  more  dangerous,  and  far  more  dif- 


64  DESPOTISM 

fictilt  to  manage.  To  extort  the  services  of  such  a 
slave,  by  mere  severity,  would  always  be  hazardous, 
and  often  impossible.  Drive  him  to  despair,  of  which 
such  a  man  in  such  circumstances,  is  easily  suscepti 
ble,  and  he  might  violently  end  a  life  from  which  he 
derived  no  enjoyment,  and  court  a  death  which  offer 
ed  him,  at  least,  the  pleasure  of  thwarting  the  hopes 
of  a  too  greedy  master.  With  such  slaves,  it  has  al 
ways  been  found  necessary,  to  enter  into  a  sort  of 
compromise, — a  treaty  of  peace,  in  which,  if  the  claims 
of  the  conqueror  were  largely  provided  for.  some  re 
spect  has  also  been  paid  to  the  rights  and  the  happi 
ness  of  the  conquered.  The  claims  of  the  master 
have  been  commuted  for  a  monthly  or  daily  tribute; 
and  what  else  the  slave  could  make  or  gain,  has  been 
relinquished  to  his  own  use.  He  has  been  further  en 
couraged  by  the  prospect  of  presently  purchasing  his 
freedom  ;  or  of  obtaining  it  by  the  free  gift  of  a  mas 
ter  well  satisfied  with  his  services. 

But  though  such  slaves  are  very  profitable,  they 
are  also,  as  has  been  above  observed,  very  dangerous. 
Put  thus  upon  a  level  with  their  masters,  in  all  that 
constitutes  the  moral  strength  of  men  ;  keenly  sensi 
tive  to  the  injustice  that  is  done  them,  and  to  the  un 
fair  advantage  that  has  been  taken  of  their  weakness, 
— they  have  ever  been  ready  to  burst  into  rebellion, 
have  sometimes  succeeded  in  overpowering  their  mas 
ters,  and  have  often  maintained  a  long,  a  bloody,  and 
a  doubtful  contest. 

All  this  is  perfectly  well  understood  at  the  south. 
A  slave  who  can  read  is  valuable  on  many  accounts, 
and  will  sell  for  more  money  than  one  who  cannot. 
A  slave  who  can  read,  write,  and  compute,  and  who 
by  reason  of  these  accomplishments  is  able  to  fulfil 
the  duties  of  a  merchant's  clerk,  is  plainly  far  more 
valuable  than  a  mere  field  hand.  One  who  under 
stands  the  art  of  printing,  an  armorer,  an  apothecary, 
are  evidently  capable  of  performing  more  profitable 
operations,  than  he  who  knows  only  how  to  handle  a 
hoe. 


IN    AMERICA.  65 

But  well  aware  how  dangerous  such  slaves  would 
be,  the  privileged  order  have  preferred  to  sacrifice 
profit  to  safety.  In  most  of  the  slave  holding  states, 
it  is  specially  enacted  that  no  slave  shall  be  taught  to 
read.  This  inability  to  read,  disqualifies  them  at  once 
for  all  the  higher  occupations.  Some  few  are  rudely 
instructed  in  those  simple  handicrafts  indispensable 
upon  every  plantation ;  but  custom  and  public  opinion, 
if  not  the  law,  imperiously  forbid,  that  any  slave 
should  be  bred  up  to  the  knowledge  or  practice  of  any 
of  the  superior  arts.  Some  publishers  of  newspapers, 
in  defect  of  white  journeymen,  introduced  slaves  into 
their  offices  as  compositors ;  but  the  experiment  was 
pronounced  too  dangerous,  and  they  were  obliged  to 
relinquish  it. 

With  the  exception  of  those  employed  in  domestic 
service,  and  in  the  few  mechanic  arts  above  mention 
ed,  the  great  mass  of  the  slaves  are  occupied  in  agri 
culture,  which,  for  the  most  part,  is  prosecuted  in  the 
rudest  possible  way.  This  is  a  subject  which  will  be 
more  fully  considered  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  Every 
thing  is  done  by  main  strength,  and  under  the  direc 
tion  of  an  overseer.  The  slaves  are  confined  to  the 
constant  repetition  of  a  few  simple  mechanical  acts  ; 
and  continually  employed  as  they  are  in  this  constant 
round  of  stupefying  labor,  which  is  not  enlivened  by 
hardly  a  single  glimpse  of  art  or  intellect ;  thus  shut 
out  from  the  means  and  opportunity  of  exercising  their 
higher  faculties,  no  wonder  that  the  soul  falls  into  a 
deep  and  death-like  slumber.  Drugged  with  such  a 
stupefying  cup,  so  artfully  administered,  the  soul 
murder  if  not  complete,  is  closely  approximated.  The 
man  loses  his  manhood,  and  is  a  man  no  longer. 
Those  mental  and  moral  capabilities  which  are  his 
pride  and  glory,  fall  into  abeyance,  and  apparently 
he  dwindles  down  into  something  little  better  than 
a  mere  animal. 

The  domestic  slaves,  being  constantly  attendant 
upon  their  masters,  and  listeners  to  their  daily  con 
versation,  cannot  but  pick  up  some  crumbs  of  knowl- 
6* 


66  DESPOTISM 

edge,  and  acquire  a  certain  habit  of  reasoning  and  re 
flection.  In  consequence  of  these  accomplishments 
they  are  feared,  suspected,  and  very  narrowly  watch 
ed.  In  all  the  towns  and  villages  of  the  south,  the 
strictest  regulations  are  established  and  enforced,  by 
which  among  other  things,  the  slaves  are  forbidden  to 
leave  their  master's  houses  after  an  early  hour  in  the 
evening,  and  in  many  other  respects,  are  subjected  to 
a  constant  system  of  the  most  prying  and  suspicious 
espionage. 

Some  writers  misled  by  a  spirit  of  patriotism,  or  de 
ceived  by  views  too  superficial,  have  represented  the 
system  of  American  slavery  as  extremely  mild,  and 
quite  a  different  thing  from  slavery  in  any  other  age 
or  country.  There  is  a  difference  it  is  true;  but  that 
difference  is  not  favorable  to  us.  It  is  easy  to  show, 
that  in  certain  most  essential  points, — those  fundamen 
tal  points  by  which  alone  a  social  system  ought  to  be 
judged,— ^American  slavery  is  a  far  more  deadly  and 
disastrous  thing,  more  fatal  to  all  the  hopes,  the  sen 
timents,  the  rights  of  humanity,  than  almost  any  other 
system  of  servitude  which  has  existed  in  any  other 
community. 

Slavery  as  it  existed  among  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans  has  been  often  referred  to,  as  a  system  of  the 
extremest  severity,  cruel  beyond  any  thing  to  be  found 
in  modern  times.*  No  doubt  that  system  was  bad 
enough.  It  would  be  well  however,  if  other  systems 
were  not  worse. 

The  Roman  master  had  the  power  of  life  and  death 
over  his  slaves ;  but  the  slaves,  in  this  respect,  stood 
upon  a  level  with  the  freemen  ;  for  the  Roman  hus 
band  and  father  had  the  same  power  over  his  wife 
and  his  children,  and  he  might  claim  and  exercise  it, 
long  after  those  children  had  passed  the  age  of  puber 
ty,  and  even  after  they  had  attained  to  the  highest 
honors  and  distinctions  of  the  state.  It  is  true  that  the 
laws  do  not  confer  an  equal  authority  upon  the  Ameri 
can  master;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  the  lives  of  his 

*  See  Charming  on  Slavery. 


IN    AMERICA.  67 

slaves  are  not  the  less  in  his  power.  It  is  easy  for  the 
master  to  invent  a  thousand  pretences  for  taking  the 
life  of  any  slave,  against  whom  he  may  have  conceiv 
ed  a  prejudice.  If  he  does  not  think  it  prudent  to  use 
the  pistol  or  the  knife,  he  needs  only  to  have  recourse 
to  a  somewhat  more  lingering  process  of.  torture,  or 
starvation. 

;  But  the  great  distinction  between  the  slavery  of  the 
ancient  world  and  that  of  America  is  this.  The  Greek 
and  Roman  slaves,  in  the  estimation  of  their  masters 
and  themselves,  though  slaves,  were  yet  men., .  It  was 
true  doubtless,  as  Homer  says,  that  the  day  a  man 
became  a  slave  he  lost  half  his  manly  virtues.  From 
the  nature  of  things  it  must  have  been  so ;  but  man 
hood  or  a  portion  of  it,  remained,  though  darkened 
and  eclipsed,  still  visible.  To  a  certain  extent  at  least, 
in  point  of  knowledge,  accomplishments,  and  the  de 
velopment  of  mind,  the  slaves  stood  upon  a  level 
with  the  free ;  and  if  there  be  something  terrible  in 
the  idea, — terrible  because  we  need  no  preparation  to 
comprehend  it, — of  a  city  sacked  and  plundered,  and 
all  its  inhabitants,  the  noblest,  the  wealthiest,  the  deli 
cate  women,  as  well  as  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the 
drawers  of  water,  sold  under  the  hammer  of  a  mili 
tary  auctioneer,  and  thence  dragged  into  servitude, — 
we  must  recollect  that  the  accomplishments,  the 
knowledge,  the  refinement  of  these  unhappy  captives, 
furnished  also  many  means  of  alleviating  the  calamity 
of  servitude,  and  presently  of  escaping  it  altogether. 
The  Athenian  captives  taken  in  the  unlucky  expe 
dition  against  Syracuse,  purchased  their  liberty  by  re 
citing  the  verses  of  Euripides.  Slaves  first  cultivated 
the  art  of  Latin  poetry,  and  introduced  at  Rome  an 
imitation  of  the  Grecian  drama.  Such  were  Plautus 
and  Terence,  and  almost  all  the  elder  Roman  poets. 
All  the  arts  which  give  comfort  and  refinement  to  life, 
and  the  mere  practice  of  which  confers  a  certain  so 
cial  distinction,  music,  poetry,  literature  in  general, 
painting,  medicine,  education,  and  many  others,  were 
principally,  or  commonly  practised  by  slaves,  who 


68  DESPOTISM 

thus  acquired  favor,  fame,  freedom,  and  finally  wealth 
and  social  elevation.  Horace,  educated  at  Athens 
among  the  sons  of  Roman  nobles,  and  afterwards  the 
friend  and  intimate  of  the  lords  of  the  empire,  and 
the  delight  and  pride  of  the  Roman  people,  was  the 
son  of  a  freedman.  Emancipations  were  frequent 
and  were  favored.  The  slave  constantly  had  before 
his  eyes  the  hope  and  the  prospect  of  liberty ;  he  thus 
had  a  noble  object  for  which  to  live ;  and  although 
there  were  in  general,  some  political  disqualifications 
which  he  could  not  expect  to  shake  off  from  himself, 
wealth,  consideration,  and  all  the  more  common  ob 
jects  of  human  hopes  and  wishes,  were  still  spread 
out  before  him ;  and  for  his  children — and  men  live 
as  much  for  their  children  as  for  themselves, — he  had 
every  thing  to  anticipate. 

Undoubtedly  the  condition  of  the  country  slave, 
employed  in  agriculture,  more  nearly  resembled  that 
of  slaves  with  us.  But  still  there  was  an  opening  for 
talent  and  for  hope.  No  slave  was  so  low  or  misera 
ble,  that  he  might  not  aspire  to  freedom  and  to  social 
elevation. 

Under  this  system,  there  existed  that  compromise 
between  the  master  and  the  slave,  Avhich  has  been  ex 
plained  above.  If  the  slave  lived  and  labored  for  his 
master,  he  also  lived  and  labored  for  himself.  He 
was  secured  by  custom,  which  is  stronger  and  more 
effectual  than  law,  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  peculium,  or 
property  of  his  own.  The  relation  of  master  and  slave 
lost  to  a  certain  degree,  the  character  of  pure  despo 
tism,  and  approached  towards  that  of  lord  and  vassal, 
patron  and  client ;  while  the  frequency  of  emancipation 
introduced  into  the  relation  of  servitude,  sentiments 
totally  opposite  to  those  which  naturally  spring  from 
it.  There  were  gleams  of  benevolence  and  of  grati 
tude;  there  was  a  twilight  of  good- will.  Compared 
to  a  condition  of  freedom,  it  was  as  the  gray  morning 
dawn  to  the  brilliancy  of  noon.  Compare-d  to  the 
system  of  our  own  country,  it  is  as  that  same  morn 
ing  dawn  to  the  blackness  of  midnight. 


IN   AMERICA.  69 

It  is  true  that  we  read  of  savage  atrocities,  exercis 
ed  in  those  ancient  times,  by  masters  towards  their 
slaves.  The  Spartans,  we  are  told,  were  accustomed 
from  time  to  time,  to  send  out  assassins  who  put  to 
death  the  boldest  and  most  intelligent  of  the  Helots ; 
and  it  is  undeniable  that  the  frequent  servile  insurrec 
tions  which  took  place  in  the  ancient  states,  were  sup 
pressed  and  punished  by  a  series  of  the  most  dread 
ful  cruelties. 

But  these  fierce  acts  ought  to  be  regarded  as  proofs 
not  so  much  of  the  degradation  of  the  slaves,  as  of 
an  approach  on  their  part,  towards  an  equality  with 
their  masters.  No  repose  is  so  perfect  as  the  repose 
of  absolute  despotism.  The  unfrequent  and  always 
trifling  disturbances  among  the  slaves  of  America  fur 
nish  palpable  evidence  how  sunk  they  are.  It  is  only 
where  a  certain  portion  of  liberty  is  enjoyed,  that 
more  begins  to  be  strenuously  claimed,  or  boldly 
sought.  To  him  that  hath,  shall  be  given;  from  him 
that  hath  not,  shall  be  taken  away,  even  that  which 
he  hath.  Such  servile  insurrections  as  take  place  in 
America,  are  faint  flashes  of  folly  or  despair.  The 
insurrections  of  slaves  in  ancient  times,  were  the 
promptings  of  genius  and  of  hope. 

Had  the  Greek  and  Roman  masters  been  the  same 
indolent,  scattered,  untrained,  unready  people  as  are 
the  American  planters,  such  were  the  means,  the 
courage,  the  spirit  of  their  slaves  that  they  could  not 
have  retained  their  dominion  for  a  day.  In  those 
times  the  free  were  all  soldiers.  War  was  their  con 
stant  study  and  pursuit.  They  lived  too  in  cities, 
ready  to  combine  and  act  at  a  moment's  warning. 
Thus  they  were  able,  by  constant  preparation,  and  su 
perior  means,  aided  as  they  were  by  the  moral  causes 
above  enumerated,  to  maintain  their  authority  over 
slaves,  enjoying  an  intellectual  equality  with  them 
selves.  Under  the  Roman  empire,  the  standing  army 
by  which  the  emperors  maintained  their  authority, 
served  also  to  hold  the  slaves  in  subjection.  Besides, 
the  masters  had  a  strong  body  of  firm  friends  and 


70  DESPOTISM 

allies  in  the  numerous  class  of  freedmen.  The  emanci 
pations  constantly  going  on  would  soon,  in  fact,  have 
put  an  end  to  the  condition  of  servitude,  had  not  the 
numbers  of  the  enslaved  been  kept  good  by  fresh  im 
portations  and  purchases.  When  at  length  these  im 
portations  ceased,  slavery  in  towns  and  cities  soon 
came  to  an  end;  the  slavery  of  the  country  was 
changed  into  villanage,  and  villanage  ended  at  last,  in 
liberty. 

To  a  certain  extent,  many  of  these  observations  ap 
ply  to  slavery  as  it  exists  in  Brazil  and  Spanish  Ame 
rica.  However  disastrous  may  be  the  social  condi 
tion  of  those  countries,  it  is  not  destitute  of  allevia 
tions.  The  slave  is  at  least  regarded  as  a  man,  and 
is  always  cheered  by  the  prospect  and  the  hope  of  free 
dom.  His  efforts  to  obtain  it  by  purchase,  by  gaining 
the  good -will  of  his  master,  or  by  other  peaceable 
means,  are  encouraged  by  the  laws  and  by  public 
opinion ;  and  if  he  attempt  to  qualify  himself  for  the 
more  advantageous  possession  of  it,  so  laudable  an 
ambition  is  approved  and  applauded. 

In  the  United  States,  with  all  their  democracy,  there 
prevails  a  totally  different  system.  It  is  laid  down, 
as  an  indisputable  maxim,  that  the  freedom,  the  equal 
ity,  the  moral  and  social  elevation  of  the  servile  class, 
or  any  of  its  members,  are  totally  inconsistent  with 
the  dignity,  the  interest,  the  existence  even  of  the 
privileged  order.  That  contempt,  that  antipathy,  that 
disgust  which  the  degraded  condition  of  servitude  na 
turally  inspires,  is  sedulously  aggravated  by  the  whole 
course  of  education,  and  is  artfully,  though  impercep 
tibly,  transferred  from  condition  to  race;  and  to  crown 
the  whole,  the  idea  is  earnestly  and  industriously  incul 
cated,  that  these  suggestions  of  prejudice  and  igno 
rance,  are  the  very  innate  promptings  of  nature. 

In  consequence,  the  natural  sympathies  of  human 
ity  are  first  smothered  and  then  extinguished.  The 
privileged  cease  to  consider  the  servile  class  as  belong 
ing  to  the  same  scale  of  being  with  themselves.  The 
slaves  in  the  estimate  of  their  masters,  lose  all  the  at- 


IN    AMERICA. 

tributes  of  humanity.  The  kindest,  the  most  tender 
hearted,  the  most  philanthropic  of  the  privileged  or 
der,  learn  to  be  perfectly  satisfied  when  the  animal 
wants  of  the  servile  class  are  tolerably  provided  for. 
To  make  any  account  of  their  mental  wants, — that  is, 
to  entertain  the  idea  that  they  are  men, — is  consid 
ered  an  absurd,  a  misplaced  and  a  fanatical  tender 
ness,  certain,  if  persevered  in,  to  uproot  the  founda 
tions  of  society,  and  to  end  in  results  indeterminate, 
but  terrible. 

For  the  slaves  are  regarded  not  merely  as  animals, 
but  as  animals  of  the  wildest  and  most  ferocious  char 
acter.  They  are  thought  to  be  like  tigers,  trained  to 
draw  the  plough,  whom  nothing  but  fear,  the  whip,  and 
constant  watchfulness,  keep  at  all  in  subjection ;  who 
would  take  advantage  of  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the 
discipline  that  restrains  them,  to  break  away  from  their 
unwilling  labors ;  and  who  if  left  to  themselves,  would 
quickly  recover  their  savage  nature,  and  find  no  en 
joyment  except  to  riot  in  blood. 

Whether  or  not  there  is  any  thing  of  reason  and 
truth  in  these  ideas,  is  not  now  the  question.  Suffice 
it  to  say,  that  they  are  universally  prevalent  throughout 
the  southern  states.  They  are  the  received,  the  author 
ized,  the  established  creed.  They  are  interwoven  into 
the  very  frame- work  of  society  :  laws,  customs,  chari 
ties,  morals,  arid  religion,  all  are  modified  by  them. 
Doubtless  there  are  men  of  reflection  and  discernment, 
and  men  in  whom  a  warm  benevolence  supplies  the 
place  of  reflection  and  discernment,  who  perceive  more 
or  less  clearly,  the  monstrous  and  extravagant  absurdi 
ty  of  these  popular  ideas.  But  for  their  lives  they 
dare  not  whisper  the  suspicion  of  a  doubt.  To  do  so 
would  be  high  treason  against  the  authority  of  the 
privileged  order, — an  order  as  jealous,  fretful  and 
suspicious  as  ever  was  the  aristocracy  of  Venice ;  and 
as  apt  to  punish  too,  on  vague  suspicion,  without  a 
trial,  or  a  responsible  accuser. 

It  is  plain  that  emancipation  can  form  no  part  of 
such  a  system.  In  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alaba- 


72  •  DESPOTISM 

ma  and  Mississippi,  no  master  can  emancipate  his 
slave,  except  with  the  express  permission  of  the  state 
legislature,  a  permission  not  easily  to  be  obtained.  In 
North  Carolina  and  Tennessee,  the  emancipating  mas 
ter  must  have  the  approbation  and  consent  of  the 
County  Court.  In  Virginia,  he  must  remove  the 
emancipated  slave,  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State.  In 
Maryland  a  similar  law  prevails.  In  Kentucky,  Mis 
souri  and  Louisiana,  the  master  still  retains  the  right;  of 
emancipation  under  certain  restrictions.  But  through 
out  all  the  slave  states,  this  exertion  of  power — the 
only  act  of  justice  which  the  owner  of  slaves,  in  his 
character  of  owner,  is  able  to  perform — is  totally  dis 
couraged  by  public  opinion.  The  emancipated  class 
is  studiously  subjected  to  mortifications  and  disabili 
ties  without  number.  They  are  considered  as  noxious 
vermin  whose  extermination  is  required  for  the  com 
fort  and  security  of  the  privileged  order.  They  are 
hunted  down  by  legislative  enactments  as  bears  and 
foxes  are  in  other  states ;  and  by  depriving  them  of  all 
the  rights  of  citizenship,  advantages  of  society,  and 
opportunities  for  labor,  the  attempt  is  made  to  ren 
der  them  if  possible,  even  more  miserable  than  the 
slaves.  These  efforts  have  been  to  a  certain  extent, 
successful.  The  condition  of  the  emancipated  class, 
would  seem  to  be  wretched  enough  to  satisfy  their 
worst  enemies.  Yet  wretched  as  they  are,  still  they 
are  envied  by  the  slaves.  What  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  miseries  of  servitude  ! 

Some  few  emancipations  occasionally  take  place; 
but  it  is  obvious  that  the  value  of  the  boon  is  exceed 
ingly  diminished,  by  the  miserable  condition  to  which 
the  emancipated  class  is  studiously  reduced.  As  to 
passing  from  the  unprivileged  into  the  privileged  or 
der,  that  is  a  thing  entirely  out  of  the  question.  No 
slave  can  expect  it  for  himself,  for  his  children,  or 
even  for  his  remotest  posterity.  The  feeling  which 
exists  upon  this  subject  throughout  the  South,  is  a 
perfect  fanaticism.  In  one  or  two  rare  instances,  a 
good-natured  master  has  attempted  to  elevate  his  own 


IN    AMERICA.  73 

children,  born  of  slave  mothers,  to  the  rank  of  free 
dom.  But  in  every  such  case,  the  penalty  of  setting 
public  opinion  at  defiance,  has  been  dearly  paid.  The 
transgressor  has  been  assailed  in  every  form  of  ridi 
cule,  and  reproach;  he  has  been  pursued  with  the 
most  inveterate  malice ;  has  been  overwhelmed  with 
torrents  of  obloquy ;  and  held  up  to  public  scorn  and 
indignation,  as  a  blasphemous  violator  of  the  decen 
cies  of  life  and  the  sacred  laws  of  nature. 

Here  is  the  point  at  which  the  slaves  of  the  United 
States  sink  into  a  depth  of  misery,  which  even  the 
imagination  can  hardly  measure.  What  is  life  with 
out  hope  ?  All  men  of  reflection,  whether  poets  or 
philosophers,  have  agreed,  that  life  even  in  the  better 
aspects  of  it,  if  we  did  but  see  things  as  they  are  and 
as  they  will  be,  would  be  a  dreary  and  a  worthless 
thing.  It  is  hope  that  cheers,  supports,  sustains  us. 
It  is  in  the  anticipation  of  future  joys,  that  we  are 
happy.  But  what  hope,  what  anticipations  has  the 
American  slave?  His  hopes  are  all  fears;  his  antici 
pations,  if  he  has  any,  are  anticipations  of  suffering. 
This  is  a  state  of  existence  which  could  not  be  endur 
ed  by  cultivated  or  reflecting  minds.  The  slightest 
gleam,  the  faintest  and  most  uncertain  glimmer,  a 
hope,  a  chance  which  to  all  beside  ourselves  may  ap 
pear  but  the  faintest,  will  suffice  often  to  lead  and 
guide  us  on,  through  defiles  dark  and  gloomy  as  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  But  when  that  light 
goes  out,  that  glimmer  ceases,  that  hope  expires,  what 
shall  save  us  from  the  horrors  of  despair  ? 
7 


74  DESPOTISM 


SECTION  VIII. 

Wealth  and  luxury  of  the  masters,  as  it  a/ects  the 
condition  of  slaves. 

It  is  a  fact  well  worthy  of  consideration,  that  with 
the  progress  of  wealth  and  luxury  among  the  masters, 
the  sufferings,  the  misery,  the  degradation  of  the  slaves 
have  been  steadily  aggravated ;  till  at  length,  in  the 
wealthiest  and  most  refined  of  our  slave  holding  com 
munities,  a  point  has  heen  reached,  both  in  theory  and 
ru  practice,  beyond  which  it  does  not  seem  easy  to  go. 

The  mildest  form  of  American  slavery  is  to  be  found, 
not  among  the  polite  and  well  educated  citizens  of 
Richmond  and  Charleston,  but  amid  the  rude  and 
wild  abodes  of  the  Creeks,  the  Choctaws,  the  Semi- 
noles, — tribes  whom  we  describe  and  stigmatize,  as 
savages. 

The  indian  slaves,  are  in  many  respects,  almost 
upon  a  level  with  their  masters.  The  wants  of  sav 
age  life  are  few  and  simple.  The  avarice  of  the  mas 
ter  is  not  stimulated  by  the  greediness  of  luxury.  He 
is  content  with  a  moderate  annual  tribute  of  corn  and 
other  provisions ;  and  provided  this  be  paid,  the  slave 
is  left  at  liberty  to  procure  it  as  he  pleases,  and  to  em 
ploy  his  time  and  strength  as  he  best  sees  fit.  It  thus 
happens  that  an  indian  slave  is  sometimes  richer  than 
his  master;  and  if  he  have  talents  and  ambition, 
though  still  a  slave,  he  may  become  one  of  the  most 
influential  persons  of  the  tribe. 

The  indian  slaves  are  well  aware  how  superior  is 
their  condition  to  that  of  the  miserable  sufferers,  who 
labor  for  white  masters,  upon  cotton  and  sugar  planta 
tions  ;  and  the  dread  they  have  of  that  lot,  as  well  as 
the  influence  they  are  able  to  exercise,  may  be  clearly 
illustrated  by  the  case  of  the  Seminole  war.  That  war, 
according  to  the  statement  of  those  best  acquainted 
with  the  subject,  had  the  following  origin.  It  was 
not  that  the  indians  themselves  had  such  serious  ob- 


IN    AMERICA.  75 

jections  to  removal ;  but  as  the  time  for  the  execution 
of  the  treaty  approached,  their  country  was  overrun 
with  speculators  and  adventurers  from  the  states,  who 
came  partly  to  set  up  claims,  true  or  false,  to  certain 
indian  slaves,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  runa 
ways,  or  the  children  of  runaways,  who  had  years 
ago  fled  to  the  Seminoles  for  protection  ;  and  partly  to 
set  on  foot  a  slave  trade  with  the  indians,  who,  it  was 
hoped  might  be  induced  at  the  moment  of  their  re 
moval  to  part  with  their  servants  for  little  or  nothing. 
The  indian  slaves  were  filled  with  terror  and  alarm 
at  this  prospect  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  white  mas 
ters;  and  it  is  believed  to  have  been  by  their  instiga 
tion  and  encouragement,  that  the  Seminoles  were  in 
duced  to  resist  the  execution  of  the  treaty,  and  to 
commence  the  war. 

The  small  planter,  who  can  neither  read  nor  write, 
who  has  been  bred  up  in  poverty  and  ignorance,  but 
who  has  wandered  into  some  new  settlement  and  has 
earned  by  his  own  personal  labor,  the  means  to  pur 
chase  two  or  three  slaves,  next  to  the  wild  indian,  is 
the  most  mild  and  indulgent  master.  He  works  with 
his  slaves  in  the  field,  he  converses  with  them  and 
consults  them.  If  either  of  them  exhibits  any  pecu 
liar  shrewdness  or  good  judgment,  the  master  per 
ceives  it,  and  avails  himself  of  it ;  and  such  a  slave 
often  becomes  his  owner's  chief  confidant  and  adviser. 

In  his  fits  of  drunkenness,  or  those  bursts  of  passion 
to  which  the  rude  and  uneducated  are  peculiarly  lia 
ble,  such  a  master  beats  and  abuses  his  slaves.  But 
he  does  the  same  thing  to  his  wife  and  children.  In 
general  he  treats  them  with  a  certain  degree  of  ten 
derness  and  familiarity ;  and  as  they  are  always  about 
him,  by  flattery,  management  and  importunity,  they 
are  able  to  carry  a  thousand  points,  and  to  secure  a 
thousand  indulgences. 

But  as  such  a  planter  grows  rich,  and  increases  the 
number  of  his  slaves,  his  feelings  and  his  conduct 
change  with  his  condition.  He  appears  in  the  field, 
not  as  a  laborer,  but  on  horseback,  whip  in  hand.  He 


6  DESPOTISM 

begins  to  copy  the  airs  and  to  imbibe  the  sentiments  of 
his  aristocratic,  refined,  and  educated  neighbors.  He 
forgets  the  equal  terms  upon  which  he  once  lived  with 
his  slaves  ;  he  feels  himself  transmuted  into  a  being 
of  a  superior  order,  born  to  be  idle  while  they  were 
born  to  work.  He  ceases  to  have  any  sympathies  for 
them.  He  learns  to  despise  them;  to  hear  their  com 
plaints  and  appeals  with  indifference  ;  and  to  push 
them  to  labors,  which  when  he  worked  by  their  side, 
he  did  not  exact. 

Under  this  new  discipline,  and  with  the  frugal 
habits  which  he  acquired  in  his  youth,  this  planter's 
property  rapidly  increases.  He  becomes  one  of  the 
wealthiest  men  of  the  neighborhood ;  and  his  son  and 
heir  takes  rank  with  the  choicest  aristocracy.  Con 
scious  of  his  own  deficiencies  in  education  and  man 
ners,  the  father  secures  for  that  son,  the  best  instruc 
tion  he  can  obtain.  He  is  sent  early  to  school,  and 
perhaps  to  some  northern  college  to  finish  his  educa 
tion.  He  returns  well  mannered,  and  accomplished, 
with  the  refinement  of  sentiment  and  the  gentle  bear 
ing  which  education  and  good  company  impart.  The 
father  dies,  and  the  son  succeeds  to  the  inheritance. 
He  has  no  taste  for  agriculture  ;  or  if  he  has,  he  can 
not  bear  the  constant  annoyances  of  a  plantation. 
He  leaves  every  thing  in  the  hands  of  an  overseer ; 
and  is  almost  a  perpetual  absentee. 

Every  reduction  in  the  allowances  to  his  slaves,  is 
so  much  net  addition  to  his  own  revenue.  He  is  al 
ways  in  want  of  money ;  and  as  he  finds  it  less  disa 
greeable  to  retrench  the  comforts  of  his  slaves  than 
his  own  luxuries,  the  slaves  are  soon  reduced  to  the 
merest  subsistence.  What  are  their  sufferings  or 
complaints  to  him?  He  is  not  at  home  to  witness  or 
to  hear  them.  He  leaves  the  execution  of  his  orders 
to  an  overseer.  This  overseer  is  desirous  to  secure 
the  good  graces  of  his  employer.  The  surest  way  of 
doing  so  is,  to  make  a  great  crop.  For  this  purpose 
the  quantity  of  land  in  cultivation  is  increased.  The 
tasks  are  extended,  and  the  additional  labor  necessan 


IN    AMERICA.  77 

to  their  execution,  is  extorted  by  the  whip.  Between 
this  new  labor  and  these  new  punishments,  the  slaves 
grow  insubordinate  and  discontented.  The  boldest 
a -.id  most  enterprising  take  to  the  woods.  They  are 
pursued  with  guns  and  dogs;  retaken;  mangled  with 
the  lash,  and  loaded  with  fetters.  These  examples 
terrify  the  others.  They  submit  in  silence.  Order  is 
restored.  The  discipline  of  the  plantation  is  spoken 
of  with  admiration.  The  crop  is  unusually  large. 
The  owner  is  delighted  with  the  result,  and  urgent  for 
its  continuance,  and  thus  extortion  and  severity  are 
carried  to  their  highest  pitch. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  physical  comforts  of  the 
slaves  are  diminished,  all  their  moral  qualities  are  de 
teriorated.  Every  bad  passion  is  called  into  play. 
That  state  of  hostility  and  warfare  in  which  slavery 
orginates  and  consists,  from  being  lulled,  and  half-qui 
escent,  becomes  open  and  flagrant.  The  masters  learn 
to  hate  the  slaves,  as  fiercely  as  the  slaves  hate  the 
masters.  Presently  they  begin  to  fear  them.  Fear 
and  hate  upon  both  sides !  God  have  mercy  upon 
the  weaker  party ! 


SECTION  IX. 

Improvement  in  physical  condition,  as  it  affects  the 
condition  of  servitude. 

Benevolence  is  one  of  those  native  impulses  of  the 
human  heart,  which  never  can  be  wholly  eradicated ; 
and  which  may  be  seen  mingling  itself  with  actions 
that  proceed  from  motives  of  a  totally  opposite  char 
acter. 

It  is  plain  that  the  whole  system  of  slavery  is  in 
violation  of  the  dictates  of  benevolence ;  yet  no  impar 
tial  observer,  who  has  resided  in  the  southern  states 
7* 


78  DESPOTISM 

of  America,  attempts  to  deny,  that  mingled  with  all 
its  wrongs  and  crimes,  there  may  be  perceived,  in 
many  cases,  much  kind  feeling  on  the  part  of  the 
masters.  Indeed  it  is  out  of  this  fringe  of  benevolence 
with  which  the  dark  garment  of  slavery  is  more  or 
less  scantily  ornamented,  that  most  of  its  defenders 
have  woven  the  frail  texture  of  their  apologies. 

This  benevolence  however  is  of  a  very  limited  char 
acter.  It  is  confined  almost  entirely  to  physical  con 
dition.  It  conforms  itself  to  the  established  sentiment 
of  the  country;  it  considers  the  slaves  not  in  their 
character  of  human  beings,  of  men,  but  merely  as 
animals. 

It  is  asserted  that  within  the  last  twenty  or  thirty 
years,  as  the  tobacco  cultivation  has  declined  in  Vir 
ginia,  there  has  been  a  great  amelioration  in  the  treat 
ment  of  slaves.  Many  benevolent  individuals  have 
exerted  themselves  to  bring  about  this  state  of  things, 
by  creating  in  the  public  mind  a  spirit  of  reprobation 
against  instances  of  excessive  cruelty.  It  may  be  ob 
served  in  passing,  that  this  amelioration  in  the  treat 
ment  of  the  Virginia  slaves,  is  a  strong  confirmation 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  preceding  chapter.  As  the 
masters  have  grown  poor,  and  have  been  obliged  to 
retrench  their  splendors  and  their  luxury,  at  the  same 
time,  they  have  grown  comparatively  humane. 

The  Kentuckians  boast,  that  of  all  the  American 
masters,  they  are  the  kindest  and  the  best ;  and  they 
take  to  themselves  no  little  credit,  for  the  liberal  sup 
ply  of  food  and  clothing  which  they  bestow  upon 
their  servants,  and  the  moderate  labor  which  they  de 
mand. 

This  course  of  treatment,  so  much  applauded  by  its 
authors,  is  worthy  of  all  approbation  on  the  score  of 
domestic  economy.  It  is  also  gratifying  to  the  hu 
mane  feelings  of  all  those  persons  of  sensibility,  to 
whom  the  constant  presence  of  visible  suffering,  is  the 
source  of  emotions  far  from  agreeable.  But  when  we 
consider  the  matter  a  little  deeper,  when  we  see  how 
this  merely  physical  kindness  operates  upon  the  intel- 


IN    AMERICA.  79 

lect  and  the  heart,  we  may  well  doubt  whether  this 
sort  of  benevolence,  however  well  intended,  and  how 
ever  on  that  account  worthy  of  applause,  does  not  in 
fact,  greatly  aggravate  the  miseries  of  servitude. 

So  long  as  men  are  constantly  pressed  by  merely 
physical  wants,  those  wants  absorb  almost  their  whole 
attention.  The  peculiar  attributes  of  humanity  are 
scantily,  or  not  at  all,  developed.  They  have  the 
form  and  the  aspect  of  men,  but  in  character  they  are 
little  more  than  mere  animals ;  and  the  gratification 
of  their  animal  wants  occupies  their  total  attention. 

But  so  soon  as  these  merely  physical  necessities  are 
satisfied,  the  mental  and  moral  attributes  begin  to  un 
fold  themselves.  The  passions  bud  and  blossom ;  the 
feelings,  the  desires,  the  aspirations  of  manhood  dis 
play  their  various  forms  and  colors.  If  they  might 
bear  their  natural  fruits,  those  fruits  would  be  good 
and  wholesome.  But  crushed,  withered,  blasted, 
plucked  up  as  it  were  by  the  roots,  their  premature 
decay  evolves  a  deadly  miasm,  which  poisons  the 
soul,  corrodes  the  heart,  and  sets  the  brain  on  fire. 

Let  us  consider  this  matter  more  minutely.  We 
read  in  ancient  fables  and  eastern  tales,  of  men  trans 
formed  by  the  power  of  magic  into  beasts.  Here  is 
an  operation  of  an  analogous  kind.  Here  are  men 
who  have  advanced  so  far  as  to  feel  that  they  are 
men,  whom  law,  custom,  prejudice,  and  the  potent 
force  of  public  opinion,  confine  to  the  condition  of 
mere  beasts  of  labor.  The  more  their  humanity  de 
velops  itself,  and  the  more  conscious  of  it  they  be 
come,  the  more  irritating  and  oppressive  this  condi 
tion  must  be.  To  be  penned  up,  driven  to  labor,  and 
foddered  by  the  hand  of  a  master, — and  what  conse 
quence  is  it  though  the  fodder  be  plentiful,  and  the 
labor  be  light  ? — to  be  repulsed  from  that  condition 
of  manhood  to  which  they  now  begin  ardently  to  as 
pire  ;  to  be  expelled  from  the  circle  of  social  emula 
tion  and  made  mere  counters  in  a  game,  of  which 
they  so  long  themselves  to  be  the  players ;  to  be  de 
spised,  scorned,  and  degraded  into  a  fellowship  with 


80  DESPOTISM 

the  beasts  they  drive ;  forbidden  to  indulge  their  na 
tural  and  irrepressible  inclinations ;  prisoners  though 
at  large ;  forever  watched ;  forever  thwarted  ;  ag 
grieved  still  further  by  the  constant  spectacle  of 
privileges,  enjoyments,  objects  and  pursuits  to  share 
in  which  they  cannot  even  dream,  but  which  increase 
in  estimated  value,  with  the  hopelessness  of  their  at 
tainment  ; — what  wonder,  if  in  souls  so  beset  with 
grievous  temptations,  there  should  spring  up  and 
grow,  a  fierce  envy,  a  desperate  hate,  an  impotent  in 
dignation  preying  on  itself,  a  dark,  ferocious,  restless 
spirit  of  revenge,  which  delay  irritates,  concealment 
sharpens,  and  fear  embitters  'I  What  wonder,  if  all 
the  mild  feelings  which  soften  man,  and  make  him  ca 
pable  of  happiness  himself,  and  of  conferring  happiness 
on  others, — are  choked  and  blasted  by  a  rank 
growth  of  deadly  passions ;  and  that  he,  who  under 
better  auspices,  might  have  been  an  ornament  and  a 
benefactor  to  society,  becomes  a  plague  to  others,  a 
torment  to  himself? 

Such  are  the  effects  which  must  inevitably  be  pro 
duced  upon  that  sensitive  and  irritable  disposition, 
the  usual  accompaniment  of  genius ;  and  the  same 
effects,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  may  be  expected  to 
result  in  the  case  of  every  slave,  whose  physical  wants 
are  so  far  satisfied,  that  he  becomes  capable  of  reflec 
tion,  and  passes  from  the  narrow  circle  of  animal 
desire,  into  the  boundless  amphitheatre  of  human 
wishes. 

Would  it  promote  the  happiness  of  our  domestic 
animals,  our  horses  and  our  oxen,  supposing  them  to 
remain  in  their  present  external  condition,  to  endow 
them  with  the  passions  and  the  intellect  of  men  1  Who 
will  maintain  the  affirmative  of  a  proposition  so  ab 
surd  ?  Yet  the  attempt  to  alleviate  the  condition  of 
slavery,  merely  by  improving  the  physical  condition 
of  the  slaves,  is  an  attempt,  the  absurdity  of  which, 
if  it  be  less  obvious,  is  precisely  of  the  same  nature. 

Keep  your  slaves  pinched  with  hunger  arid  worn 
down  with  fatigue,  and  they  remain  merely  animals, 


IN    AtofattiCA.  81 

or  very  little  more.  They  suffer  it  is  true ;  but  they 
suffer  as  animals.  There  is  a  certain  fixed  limit  to 
their  misery.  It  has  its  intervals  of  cessation.  The 
imagination  has  no  power  over  it.  What  it  is,  it  is. 
The  present  is  the  whole ;  for  the  past  is  forgotten, 
and  the  future  is  not  anticipated. 

But  satisfy  their  hunger ;  put  them  physically  at 
ease ;  give  them  leisure  for  thought, — and  you  create 
new  sufferings  more  bitter  than  those  you  have  re 
moved.  The  man  finds  that  yoke  intolerable,  of 
which  the  animal  hardly  perceived  the  existence. 
For  two  or  three  wants  that  you  have  relieved,  you 
have  created  twenty  others,  or  caused  them  to  be  felt, 
wants  incessant,  unquiet,  unappeaseable ;  and  for 
these  wants  there  is  no  remedy, — no  remedy,  while 
you  remain  a  master,  and  they  slaves !  After  the 
sybil  had  cast  two  volumes  into  the  fire,  the  third 
remained,  as  costly  and  as  precious  as  all  the  three. 
In  like  manner,  the  chain  of  servitude  loses  none  of 
its  weight,  by  parting  with  a  portion  of  its  links. 
While  one  remains,  that  one  is  heavy  as  the  whole ! 
Nay,  heavier ; — and  as  it  dwindles  to  the  sight,  still 
it  pierces  deeper  to  the  soul;  it  frets  and  ulcerates  the 
heart.  At  first  it  only  bound  the  limbs ;  but  now  it 
penetrates,  and  with  its  murderous  touch,  tortures  the 
vitals ! 

It  is  a  common  remark  at  the  South,  that  the  more 
intelligent  a  slave  is,  the  more  unquiet,  dangerous, 
and  troublesome  he  is.  The  remark  is  just.  The 
more  intelligent  a  slave  is.  the  more  grievously  he 
feels  the  yoke  of  slavery.  If  a  master  then,  through 
indulgence  towards  his  slaves,  has  placed  them  in  a 
situation  of  comparative  physical  comfort,  so  far  from 
having  a  reason  for  stopping  at  that  point,  it  becomes 
more  imperatively  his  duty  to  go  on.  By  doing  what 
he  has  done,  he  has  sharpened  the  appetite  for  liber 
ty  ;  and  this  appetite  which  he  has  sharpened,  is  he 
not  the  more  urgently  called  upon  to  gratify  ? 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  this  argument  is  no  bet 
ter  than  an  apology  for  a  system  of  hard  labor  and 


82  DESPOTISM    IN    AMERICA. 

starvation,  nor  let  any  man  so  use  it.  God  forbid ! 
Those  are  obvious  cruelties;  and  so  clearly  percepti 
ble  to  the  senses,  that  no  man  of  common  humanity, 
however  thoughtless  and  unobservant,  can  fail  to  per 
ceive  them ;  and  no  man  of  common  sensibility  can 
bear  to  inflict  them.  I  have  desired  to  call  attention 
to  sufferings  of  another  kind — mental  sufferings, — not 
so  obvious,  yet  far  more  excruciating;  slavery's  se 
cond  growth,  a  rank  and  poisonous  growth,  more 
deadly  than  the  first. 

I  have  desired  to  point  to  the  slave-holder,  the  fear 
ful  dilemma  by  which  he  is  hemmed  in.  The  moment 
he  ceases  to  inflict  tortures  at  which  his  sensibilities 
revolt,  the  moment  he  yields  to  those  prayers  for  mer 
cy  which  his  own  heart  re-echoes  to  him,  at  that  very 
moment  he  becomes  the  author  of  new  sufferings  ten 
times  more  severe,  than  those  he  puts  a  stop  to.  He 
irritates  while  attempting  to  soothe ;  and  the  oil  which 
he  drops  into  the  wounds  of  servitude  becomes  a  bit 
ter  and  acrid  poison. 

This  is  one  of  those  cases  in  which  all  must  be 
done,  or  nothing.  Half  measures,  palliatives,  do  but 
inflame  the  disease.  The  only  cure  for  slavery,  is, 
freedom ! 


CHAPTER    SECOND. 

POLITICAL    RESULTS    OF    THE    SLAVE-HOLDING    SYSTEM. 


SECTION   I. 

General  View  of  the  Subject. 

The  great  objects  aimed  at,  or  which  should  be 
aimed  at,  in  the  political  constitution  of  a  government, 
are  1st,  Security,  2nd,  Freedom,  3d,  Equality. 

Security  has  two  principal  branches,  of  which  one 
relates  to  the  person,  and  the  other  to  property.  A 
good  degree  of  security  in  both  these  respects,  is  es 
sential  to  the  com'fortj  and  to  the  advancement  of 
society. 

Freedom  is  either  political  or  civil.  Political  Free 
dom  consists  in  a  participation,  more  or  less  direct,  in 
the  appointment  of  magistrates,  the  enactment  of  laws, 
and  other  public  acts.  Civil  Freedom  depends  upon 
the  supremacy  of  the  laws.  It  guarantees  every  citi 
zen  against  arbitrary  and  capricious  interference.  It 
admits  of  no  punishments  except  according  to  exist 
ing  statutes  ;  and  it  allows  the  enactment  of  no  law 
founded  upon  any  other  reason  than  the  public  good. 

Equality  divides  itself  into  three  sorts ;  1st,  Political 
Equality,  or  the  equal  participation  in  political  priv 
ileges,  and  the  equal  chance  to  enjoy  political  power; — 
in  other  words  the  perfection  of  political  freedom;  2nd, 
Equality  of  property,  or  the  most  equal  distribution, 
consistent  with  security,  of  the  wealth  already  exist 
ing,  and  the  equal  chance  to  produce  or  acquire  new 
wealth ;  3d,  Social  Equality,  or  the  equal  chance  of 
acquiring  estimation  and  regard  by  the  exhibition  of 


84  DESPOTISM 

amiable  and  useful  qualities,  or  the  performance  of 
meritorious  actions. 

Now  so  far  as  regards  the  unprivileged  class  of  the 
community,  it  is  obvious  at  a  single  glance,  that  the 
constitutions  of  the  Southern  States  fail  totally,  in  se 
curing  any  one  of  the  above  objects.  They  not  only 
fail,  but  they  do  worse  j  they  make  a  deliberate  sacri 
fice  of  them  all. 

This  sacrifice  is  said  to  be  necessary  in  order  to  se 
cure  the  well  being  of  the  privileged  class.  If  in  fact 
it  is  so,  it  must  needs  be  confessed  that  the  alternative 
is  very  unfortunate.  .  The  Southern  people,  if  we  al 
low  this  necessity,  are  in  the  unhappy  predicament  of 
a  savage  tribe  of  which  one  half,  in  order  to  sustain 
existence,  are  driven  to  kill  and  to  devour  the  other 
half.  Before  we  can  admit  the  necessity  of  any  such 
horrible  experiment,  every  other  means  must  first 
have  been  tried,  and  must  have  failed.  What  should 
we  think  of  a  tribe  of  savages  who  lived  fat  and  com 
fortable  upon  the  blood  and  flesh  of  their  brethren, 
without  the  slightest  attempt  to  devise  any  other 
means  of  subsistence;  and  who  repulsed  with  impa 
tient  anger  and  bitter  reproaches,  the  benevolent  ef 
forts  of  those  who  would  point  out  to  them  a  more 
decent  and  innocent  way? 

It  is  clear  that  so  far  as  the  unprivileged  class  are 
concerned,  the  political  results  of  slavery  are  most 
disastrous.  Slaves  suffer  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
all  the  worst  evils  of  tyranny  and  of  anarchy.  The 
laws  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  are  all  penal ;  they 
impose  a  multitude  of  obligations,  but  they  create  no 
rights.  .The  compendious  definition  of  a  slave  is,  a 
man,  who  has  no  rights,  but  with  respect  to  whom  the 
rights  of  his  owner  are  unlimited.  If  the  law  in  some 
respects,  seems  to  protect  him,  it  is  riot  in  his  charac 
ter  of  a  man,  but  in  his  character  of  a  thing,  a  piece 
of  property.  Exactly  the  same  protection  which  the 
law  extends  to  a  slave,  it  extends  to  a  dog,  a  horse, 
or  a  writing  desk.  The  master  does  as  he  pleases 
with  either.  If  any  other  person  undertakes  to  dam- 


IN    AMERICA.  85 

age,  steal,  or  destroy  them,  he  is  answerable  to  the 
owner,  and  is  punished  not  as  a  violator  of  personal 
rights,  but  for  having  disregarded  the  laws  of  prop 
erty. 

The  constant  sacrifice  of  so  many  human  victims, 
amounting  in  several  states  of  the  American  Union  to 
a  majority  of  the  population, — such  a  sweeping  depri 
vation  of  rights  as  the  slave-holding  states  exhibit,  if 
it  can  be  justified  at  all,  must  find  that  justification  in 
some  vast  amount  of  good,  which  that  sacrifice  pro 
duces.  This  good  must  be  principally  sought  for 
among  the  privileged  class.  If  it  exist  at  all  it  must 
be  either  political, — by  increasing  the  security,  free 
dom  and  equality  of  the  privileged  class ;  economical, 
— by  increasing  wealth,  comfort  and  civilization ;  or 
personal, — by  its  beneficial  influences  on  individual 
character.  When  Mr.  McDufiie  pronounces  slavery 
the  best  and  only  sure  foundation  of  a  free  govern 
ment,  if  he  has  any  meaning  at  all,  if  this  declaration 
be  any  thing  more  than  a  passionate  paradox. — he 
must  mean  to  imply,  that  the  political  consequences 
of  slavery  are  of  a  kind  highly  beneficial  to  the  mas 
ter  ;  in  fact  so  beneficial  to  the  master  as  to  form  a 
counterpoise,  and  more  than  a  counterpoise  to  all  the 
evils  it  inflicts  upon  the  slave.  It  becomes  then  an 
important  question,  what  are  the  effects  which  slave 
ry  produces  upon  the  political,  economical,  and  per 
sonal  condition  of  the  privileged  class?  And  in  the 
first  place  of  its  political  results. 
8 


86  DESPOTISM 

SECTION  II. 

Slavery ',  as  it  affects  the  security  of  the  privileged  class. 

I.  We  will  consider  in  the  first  place  how  the  secu 
rity  of  property  is  affected  by  the  institution  of  sla 
very. 

Property  is  better  secured  in  proportion  as  a  greater 
part  of  the  population  is  made  to  feel  a  direct  interest 
in  its  security.  The  moral  force  of  opinion  in  this  as 
in  other  cases,  has  an  efficacy  greater  than  law.  Laws 
unsustained  by  public  opinion  can  only  be  enforced 
by  a  great  and  constant  exertion  of  physical  power. 

1.  With  regard  to  the  slave  holding  states,  a  large 
part  of  the  population,  to  wit,  the  slaves,  so  far  from 
having  any  personal  interest  in  upholding  the  laws  of 
property,  have  a  direct  and  powerful  interest  the  other 
way.  The  laws  of  property  in  their  eyes,  so  far  from 
being  designed  to  promote  the  public  good,  and  to  con 
fer  a  benefit  upon  all,  are  but  a  cunningly  devised 
system  by  means  of  which  the  character  and  the  name 
of  Right  is  bestowed  upon  the  rankest  injustice,  and 
the  most  flagrant  usurpation.  This  attempt  to  mono 
polize  the  benefits  of  property,  this  system  by  which 
a  large  portion  of  the  community  are  not  only  depri 
ved  of  those  benefits  but  are  actually  themselves  con 
verted  into  articles  of  property,  has  the  necessary 
effect  to  create  in  the  very  bosom  of  the  community, 
a  state  of  feeling  utterly  hostile  to  security.  Slaves  are 
universally  depredators  upon  the  property  of  their 
masters.  Such  depredation  they  regard  as  perfectly 
justifiable  and  even  praiseworthy.  It  requires  the 
most  incessant  vigilance  to  guard  against  it,  nor 
will  the  most  incessant  vigilance  always  suffice.  The 
security  of  the  slave-master  is  the  security  of  a  house 
keeper  who  knows  that  he  entertains  a  gang  of  thieves 
upon  his  premises,  and  who  is  in  constant  apprehen 
sion  of  being  robbed. 

Nor  is  this  systematic  spirit  of  plunder  confined  to 


IN    AMERICA.  87 

the  unprivileged  class.  It  embraces  also  the  large 
class  of  .free  traders  who  gain  their  livelihood  by  a 
traffic  in  stolen  goods.  It  is  these  persons  who  offer 
inducement  for  a  large  part  of  the  depredations  which 
the  slaves  commit  upon  their  masters.  These  depre 
dations,  though  small  in  the  individual  instances,  are 
enormous  in  the  total  amount.  The  extreme  severity 
with  which  the  laws  of  the  southern  states  visit  the 
offence  of  trading  with  slaves  in  articles  suspected  to 
be  stolen,  and  the  terrible  outrages  occasionally  com 
mitted  upon  this  sort  of  offenders  by  planters  who 
think  the  inflictions  of  the  law  to  be  too  mild,  or  too 
uncertain,  are  a  sufficient  proof  in  how  serious  a  light 
these  depredations  are  regarded.  j 

2.  By  the  institution  of  slavery,  the  slaves  them-v 
selves  become  the  chief  article  of  property.     Property 
of  all  kinds  has  a  certain  tendency  to  take  wings  to 
itself  and  fly  away.     This  is  peculiarly  the  case  with  • 
slave  property.      In  addition  to   all  the   other   acci 
dents  to  which  slaves,  in  common  with  other  species  of 
property,  are  exposed,  they  have  a  propensity  to  im 
poverish  their  masters  by  absconding.     How  frequent 
ly  this  propensity  comes  into  exercise,  any  body  may 
learn  by  examining  the  columns  of  the  southern  news 
papers.     Of  the  slaves  that  run  away,  the  greater  part 
are  recovered :    this  is  true,  but  still  the  master  is  a 
loser.     He  loses  their  services  during  their  absence, — 
often  at  the  most  critical  moment  of  the  crop, — besides 
the  expense  of  their   apprehension  and   conveyance 
home,  including  the  reward  offered,  which  in  itself  is 
often  equal  to  half  the  money  value  of  the  slave. 

3.  Many  slaves  submit  with  great  reluctance  to  the 
station  and  duties  which  the  law  assigns  to  them.     To 
keep  these  unquiet  creatures  in  due  subordination,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  wound,  to  maim,  and  sometimes 
to  kill  them.     This  chance  of  loss  takes  away  in  a 
certain  degree,  from  the  security  of  this  kind  of  pro 
perty. 

4.  We  come  now  to  a  cause  of  insecurity  of  a  more 
serious  character  than  any  yet  enumerated.     Property 


88  DESPOTISM 

in  slaves  is  not  a  kind  of  property  generally  acknow 
ledged.  There  are  whole  nations  who  deny  that  any 
such  kind  of  property  ought  to  exist.  All  the  most 
enlightened  people  in  the  world  are  precisely  of  that 
opinion.  Within  the  last  fifty  years,  an  effort  has 
been  begun, — an  effort  which  every  day  gathers  new 
force  and  earnestness. — for  the  total  abolition  of  this 
kind  of  property.  The  alarm  which  this  effort  pro 
duces  among  the  holders  of  slaves  is  natural,  and  it  is 
great.  An  alarm  exists  at  all  times  among  slave 
holders,  because  there  is  always  a  certain  apprehen 
sion  lest  the  slaves  themselves  may  reclaim  their 
liberty  by  force.  But  that  alarm  reaches  an  extreme 
height  when  it  is  known  that  there  are  other  persons, 
over  whom  the  slave-masters  have  no  control,  who 
sympathize  with  the  slaves,  and  who  profess  the  inten 
tion  of  using  every  moral  means  to  bring  about  their 
emancipation.  Moral  means  is  a  phrase  which  slave- 
masters  find  it  difficult  to  understand.  Force,  violence, 
is  the  only  means  with  which  they  are  familiar ;  and 
this  means  which  they  themselves  so  constantly  em 
ploy,  they  naturally  apprehend,  will  be  used  against 
them.  The  degree  of  alarm  thus  produced,  is  suffi 
ciently  indicated  by  the  ferocity  with  which  the  per 
sons  called  abolitionists  have  been  assailed  by  the 
slave-holders,  and  by { the  savage  barbarities  exercised 
upon  such  abolitionists,  or  supposed  abolitionists,  as 
have  fallen  into  their  hands  ;  exercised  generally  upon 
mere  suspicion,  and  with  hardly  any  evidence  that 
the  sufferers  were  guilty  of  entertaining  the  opinions 
ascribed  to  them. 

Thus  it  appears  that  under  a  constitution  authoriz 
ing  slavery,  one  of  the  chief  items  of  property,  name 
ly,  slave  property,  from  its  very  nature,  its  total  want 
of  any  foundation  of  mutual  benefit,  is  peculiarly  inse 
cure  ;  and  this  insecurity  spreads  to  every  other  kind 
of  property,  because  the  institution  of  slavery,  by  its 
necessary  effect  destroys  all  respect  for  property  of 
any  kind,  in  a  large  part  of  the  population,  arid  also 
creates  a  vast  number  of  depredators. 


IN    AMERICA.  89 

II.  We  come  now  to  that  branch  of  Security, 
which  relates  to  the  person. 

Here  again  the  privileged  class  of  a  slave  holding 
community  are  beset  with  alarms  and  dangers.  These 
dangers  and  alarms  are  of  two  kinds, — dangers  from 
the  slaves,  dangers  from  one  another. 

1.  Dangers  from  the  slaves.  The  master  retains  his 
authority  only  by  the  constant  exercise  of  violent 
means.  This  violence  is  liable  at  any  time  to  be  re 
torted  upon  himself.  The  subjugation  and  cowardice 
of  those  over  whom  he  tyrannizes,  afford  the  master 
a  certain  degree  of  security.  But  passion  often  sup 
plies  the  place  of  courage ;  and  we  frequently  hear  of 
terrible  acts  of  vengeance  committed  upon  the  person 
or  family  of  the  master,  by  outraged  and  infuriated 
servants. 

But  this  danger  is  trifling  compared  with  that  anti 
cipated  from  a  rising  of  the  servile  class.  Every  two 
or  three  years  the  report  of  an  insurrection,  real  or 
imaginary,  spreads  the  most  frantic  terror  through  the 
southern  states.  The  antics  enacted  upon  such  occa 
sions,  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  farcical,  did 
they  not  generally  terminate  in  bloody  tragedies. 
Men  who  are  individually  brave,  and  who  would 
march  to  the  assault  of  a  battery  without  flinching, 
work  each  other  into  a  complete  paroxism  of  fear.  A 
single  negro  seen  in  the  woods  with  a  gun  upon  his 
shoulder,  suffices  to  put  a  whole  village  to  flight. 
Half-a-dozen  unintelligible  words  overheard  and 
treasured  up  by  some  evesdropping  overseer,  or  invent 
ed  perhaps  by  some  miscreant,  who  delights  himself 
with  the  public  alarm,  are  enough  to  throw  all  the 
southern  states  into  commotion,  and  to  bring  nights  of 
agony  and  sleeplessness  to  hundreds  of  thousands. 
But  this  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  When  terror  makes 
cowards  it  always  makes  bloody-minded  cowards. 

Blood  !  blood  ! — nothing  else  can  appease  the  gene 
ral  alarm.  Committees  of  safety  with  the  most  abso 
lute  authority,  are  every  where  established.  On  these 
committees  sit  many  a  village  Tinville,  many  a  rustic 
8* 


90  DESPOTISM 

Danton.  Before  these  tribunals  the  unhappy  victims 
are  dragged;  accusation  and  condemnation  keep  close 
company.  Hanging,  shooting,  and  burning  become 
the  order  of  the  day.  The  headlong  ferocity  of  these 
proceedings  betrays  the  greatness  of  that  alarm  which 
produces  them. 

It  has  been  shown  in  another  place,  that  notwith 
standing  the  extreme  degree  of  terror  to  which  the 
apprehension  of  slave  vengeance  gives  rise  throughout 
the  south,  the  actual  danger  is  by  no  means  propor 
tionately  great.  Many  causes  contribute  to  this  dis 
proportion,  of  which  one  leading  one  is,  a  secret  con 
sciousness  of  the  cruel  injustice  of  slavery.  Tyranny 
is  ever  timid,  always  full  of  fears. 

2.  Danger  from  one  another.  In  this  case,  the  alarm 
is  less,  but  the  danger  is  more  real.  Throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  southern  states  it  is  considered  es 
sential  to  personal  safety,  to  carry  concealed  weapons. 
This  single  fact  shows  that  personal  security  is  at  the 
lowest  ebb.  When  a  man  must  protect  himself,  for 
what  is  he  indebted  to  the  laws  ?  These  weapons  are 
no  doubt  carried  partly  as  a  protection  against  the 
slaves  ;  but  they  are  chiefly  used,  in  quarrels  between 
freemen.  Of  these  quarrels  the  laws  take  but  little 
notice.  In  such  a  case  it  is  considered  the  mark  of  a 
mean  spirit  to  appeal  to  the  law.  If  I  am  assaulted 
or  beaten,  it  is  expected  that  I  stab  or  shoot  the  ag 
gressor.  In  several  of  the  southern  states  it  seems  to 
make  very  little  difference,  whether  I  challenge  him 
to  a  duel,  or  assault  him  without  previous  notice  given, 
in  a  tavern,  or  the  streets.  Murders  are  constantly 
committed  in  this  way.  For  the  most  part  they  go 
entirely  unpunished,  or  if  punished  at  all,  it  is  only 
by  a  short  imprisonment,  or  a  trifling  fine.  They  fix 
no  imputation  upon  a  man's  character.  Persons  guilty 
of  homicide  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  best  society  of 
the  southern  states.  If  it  be  inquired  what  is  the  con 
nection  between  this  condition  of  manners  and  the 
existence  of  slavery,  the  answer  is,  that  the  imperious 
ferocity  of  temper  which  the  exercise  of  despotic 


IN    AMERICA.  91 

power  produces  or  inflames,  is  the  main  cause  of  the 
existence  and  the  toleration  of  an  insecurity  of  person 
and  a  recklessness  of  human  life,  such  as  hardly  else 
where  prevails  in  the  most  barbarous  countries. 

But  even  this  is  not  the  worst  aspect  of  the  case. 
The  panic  terror  which  the  rumor  of  an  insurrection 
produces  at  the  south  has  been  already  mentioned. 
That  terror  levels  all  distinction  between  slaves  and 
freemen,  and  so  long  as  it  lasts,  no  man's  person  is 
secure.  During  the  period  of  the  Mississippi  insurrec 
tion,  or  pretended  insurrection,  in  the  summer  of  1835, 
the  committee  of  safety  appointed  upon  that  occasion, 
by  a  tumultuous  popular  assembly,  were  vested  with 
ample  authority  "  to  try,  acquit,  condemn,  and  punish 
white  or  black,  who  should  be  charged  before  them." 
By  virtue  of  this  commission,  the  committee  proceeded 
to  try  a  large  number  of  persons,  principally  white 
men,  accused  of  having  instigated,  or  favored  the  al 
leged  intended  insurrection.  Many  of  those  tried 
were  found  guilty,  and  were  hung  upon  the  spot.  A 
great  many  others  were  cruelly  whipped,  and  were 
ordered  to  quit  the  state  in  twenty-four  hours. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Sharkey  will  clearly  exhibit  the 
degree  of  personal  security  existing  in  the  state  of 
Mississippi  at  that  time.  Mr.  Sharkey  was  a  magis 
trate,  and  in  the  exercise  of  his  legal  authority,  he  set 
at  liberty  three  men,  of  whose  entire  innocence  of  the 
charges  alleged  against  them  he  was  well  assured, 
although  they  had  been  seized  by  the  pursuivants  of 
the  committee  of  safety.  This  gentleman  was  a  plant 
er,  a  man  of  property,  a  large  slave-holder,  brother 
to  the  chief  justice  of  the  state, — a  person  not  very 
likely  to  be  implicated  in  a  slave  insurrection.  But 
his  opposition  to  the  despotic  authority  of  the  com 
mittee  was  considered  to  be  plenary  proof  of  guilt, 
and  a  large  party  was  sent  to  arrest  him.  Mr.  Shar 
key  had  no  relish  for  being  hung  upon  suspicion ;  so 
he  barricadoed  his  doors,  built  fires  about  his  house, 
in  order  that  the  darkness  of  the  night  might  not  con 
ceal  the  approach  of  the  pursuivants,  wrapped  his 


92  DESPOTISM 

infant  child  in  the  bed  clothes  to  save  it  from  the  bul 
lets,  loaded  his  muskets,  and  quietly  waited  the  at 
tack.  His  left  hand  was  dreadfully  shattered  by  the 
first  lire  of  the  assailants;  but  he  succeeded  in  killing 
their  leader,  in  wounding  several  of  the  rest,  and  in 
compelling  a  retreat.  By  this  time  his  friends  and 
connections  began  to  collect  about  him,  and  a  party 
was  formed  in  his  favor.  Had  he  been  less  wealthy, 
or  less  influential,  he  would  inevitably  have  perished. 


SECTION  TIL 

Slavery  as  it  affects  the  liberty  of  the  privileged  class. 

One  of  the  chief  branches  of  civil  liberty  consists 
in  the  unrestricted  disposal  of  one's  property.  There 
are  restrictions  which  are  necessary;  but  the  more 
these  restrictions  are  multiplied,  the  more  is  liberty 
restrained. 

By  the  institution  of  slavery,  slaves  become  one  of 
the  principal  kinds  of  property ;  but  in  the  free  dis 
posal  of  this  kind  of  property,  the  slave-master  at  the 
South  is  very  much  restricted.  The  "sacred  rights 
of  property,"  as  to  which  he  is  apt  to  be  so  eloquent, 
with  regard  to  that  very  subject-matter  with  respect 
to  which  he  considers  them  most  sacred,  are  closely 
restrained  by  laws  of  his  own  enacting. 

To  set  a  slave  free,  is  certainly  the  highest  act  of 
ownership ;  the  only  one  indeed  which  a  truly  virtuous 
man  ought  to  exercise;  and  certainly  the  last  one 
which  a  person  of  any  manly  spirit  would  be  willing 
to  surrender.  But  in  the  greater  part  of  the  southern 
states,  the  master  is  deprived  by  law  of  the  right  of 
emancipation.  Here  certainly  is  a  most  grievous  in 
fringement  upon  liberty. 

The  right  to  improve  one's  property  so  as  to  increase 


IN   AMERICA.  93 

its  productiveness  and  give  it  an  additional  value,  is  an 
essential,  part  of  civil  liberty.  But  this  is  a  right  of 
which,  as  respects  his  slaves,  the  southern  master  is 
in  a  great  degree  deprived.  In  most  of  the  slave 
states  it  is  a  highly  penal  offence  to  teach  a  slave  to 
read.  Now  reading  and  writing  are  essential  to  many 
employments.  These  accomplishments,  and  others 
which  by  their  means  the  slave  might  acquire,  would 
greatly  tend  to  enhance  his  value,  by  making  him 
capable  of  more  valuable  services.  But  the  master  is 
riot  allowed  to  improve  his  property  in  this  way.  The 
law  interferes  to  prevent  it. 

Considering  slaves  merely  as  property,  here  are  two 
grievous  infringements  upon  the  master's  liberty.  But 
consider  them  as  men,  and  the  infringement  upon  the 
master's  freedom  of  action  is  still  more  intolerable. 
1  am  deprived  by  law  of  the  capacity  to  be  benevolent 
and  just.  I  am  ready  to  confer  upon  a  fellow  being 
the  highest  boon  which  man  can  give  or  receive ; — 
but  the  laws  do  not  permit  me  to  confer  it.  Perhaps 
the  slave  is  my  own  child.  No  matter ;  he  shall  re 
main  a  slave  to  the  day  of  his  death,  unless  I  can 
obtain  as  a  particular  grace  and  favor,  a  special  per 
mission  to  set  him  free.  Is  this  liberty?  Is  not  the 
servitude  of  the  father  as  miserable  almost  as  that 
of  the  son  ? 

The  authors  of  these  laws  have  plainly  perceived 
that  the  natural  dictates  of  humanity  are  at  war  with 
the  institution  of  slavery ;  and  that  if  left  to  their  own 
operation,  sooner  or  later,  they  would  accomplish  its 
overthrow.  To  perpetuate  the  slavery  of  the  un 
privileged  class,  they  have  fettered  up  those  senti 
ments  of  the  human  heart,  which  are  the  foundation 
of  morality  and  of  all  the  charities  of  life.  For  the 
sake  of  brutalizing  others,  they  nave  sought  to  bar 
barize  themselves. 

Liberty  of  opinion,  liberty  of  speech,  and  liberty  of 
the  press  do  not  exist  in  the  southern  states  of  the 
American  Union,  any  more  than  under  any  other 
despotism.  No  doubt  there  are  some  subjects  which 


94  DESPOTISM 

may  be  very  freely  discussed  there ;  but  the  same  is 
the  case  under  all  despotisms.  Any  body  may  freely 
discuss  at  Rome  or  Moscow,  the  merits  and  demerits  of 
American  slavery.  The  only  prohibited  subjects  are3 
the  plans  of  government  and  systems  of  policy  upheld 
by  the  pope  or  the  czar.  So  at  Charleston  or  Rich 
mond,  one  is  at  full  liberty  to  discuss  subjects  having 
no  obvious  bearing  upon  the  political  system  and 
social  condition  of  Virginia  or  South  Carolina.  But 
approach  that  subject,  lisp  the  word,  slavery ;  dare  to 
insinuate  that  the  existing  system  of  southern  society 
is  not  the  best  possible  system ;  assail  ever  so  cau 
tiously  the  tyranny  of  the  slave-masters;  point  out 
ever  so  temperately  the  inevitable  wretchedness  of 
the  slaves,  and  you  will  soon  be  taught  that  despotism 
is  as  jealous,  as  watchful,  and  as  fierce,  in  America 
as  in  Europe. 

The  discussion  of  this  prohibited  subject  is  not  only 
visited  by  severe  legal  penalties,  under  pretence  that  it 
has  a  tendency  to  produce  insurrections, — the  same 
reason,  by  the  way,  which  is  given  at  Rome  and  Mos 
cow, — but  it  is  still  more  effectually  suppressed  by  the 
terrors  of  Lynch  law,  a  system  of  procedure,  which 
in  cases  of  this  sort  is  either  openly  countenanced,  or 
secretly  abetted  by  the  gravest  jurists  of  the  South. 

Not  only  is  discussion  prevented,  but  it  is  dangerous 
to  receive,  to  read,  even  to  have  in  possession,  any 
book,  pamphlet  or  newspaper  which  has  been  en 
rolled  in  the  Index  Expurgatorius  of  the  slave-holding 
Inquisition,  or  which,  though  not  proscribed  byname, 
appears  to  treat  upon  the  evils  of  slavery  and  their 
remedies. 

The  United  States  post-office  at  Charleston  was 
violently  assaulted  \^  a  mob,  headed  by  the  principal 
inhabitants  of  the  city,  and  a  large  part  of  its  con 
tents  publicly  burnt,  under  pretence  that  among  the 
newspapers  and  pamphlets  contained  in  it,  there  were 
some  of  an  insurrectionary  character. 

At  Richmond  a  bookseller  received  a  box  of  books 
containing  copies  of  a  certain  work  compiled  by  a 


IN    AMERICA.  95 

Virginia  clergyman,  to  aid  the  Colonization  Society. 
It  was  principally  made  tip  of  extracts  from  speeches 
delivered  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates  in  favor 
of  a  project  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  by 
shipping  off  the  slaves  to  Africa,  broached  shortly 
after  the  Southampton  insurrection.  This  book  was 
denounced  as  incendiary  by  the  Richmond  Com 
mittee  of  Safety,  and  by  their  order  all  the  copies 
were  delivered  up,  and  burnt  in  the  public  square. 

In  the  District  of  Columbia  an  unlucky  botanist 
happened  to  have  among  his  papers  used  for  the  pre 
servation  of  plants,  some  copies  of  a  prohibited  news 
paper.  He  was  arrested,  almost  torn  in  pieces  by  the 
mob,  thrown  into  prison  where  he  lay  upwards  of  six 
months,  and  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  his  ac 
quittal  was  obtained. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  at  the  very  moment  at 
which  the  Richmond  Whig  was  assailing  Louis 
Phillippe  and  his  ministers  for  their  restrictions  upon 
the  French  press,  the  Journal  des  Debats  was  defend 
ing  those  restrictions  by  the  example  of  Virginia  !  It 
must  be  confessed  that  the  French  restrictions  are  per 
fect  liberty,  c'ompared  with  the  law  and  practice  of 
the  southern  states. 

The  Secret  Tribunal  of  Venice,  which  received  anon 
ymous  accusations,  and  which  proceeded  to  judgment 
without  notice  given  to  the  culprit,  has  been  always 
denounced  as  an  institution  the  most  hostile  to  liberty 
that  can  possibly  be  imagined.  Tribunals  very  simi 
lar,  and  in  many  respects  much  more  to  be  dreaded, 
exist  throughout  almost  the  whole  of  the  slave-holding 
states.  They  pervade  the  country  and  hold  all  the 
citizens  in  awe.  The  punishments  inflicted  are  of  the 
most  dreaded  kind, — death  by  the  gallows  or  a  slow 
fire,  banishment,  scourging,  tar  and  feathers.  This 
jurisdiction  is  known  as  Lynch  law,  and  the  accusers, 
judges  and  executioners  are  generally  the  same  per 
sons.  As  was  the  case  with  the  Secret  Tribunal,  it 
confines  itself  principally  to  state  crimes,  that  is,  to 
such  actions  as  are  supposed  to  have  a  tendency  to 


96  DESPOTISM 

overthrow  the  existing  system  of  despotism.  This 
system  of  Lynch  law  which  sprung  into  existence 
among  the  barbarous  settlers  of  the  backwoods,  where 
no  law  existed,  and  which  was  invented  by  them  as 
a  substitute  for  law,  has  of  late  been  introduced  into 
the  oldest  and  most  civilized  of  the  slave  states,  and 
has  been  made  to  supersede  the  regular  administration 
of  justice  in  a  variety  of  the  most  serious  and  im 
portant  cases.  The  terror  of  this  tribunal  is  sufficient 
to  preserve  a  dead  silence  at  the  South,  and  to  pro 
duce  an  apparent  unanimity  of  opinion.  There  are 
no  doubt  numbers  who  still  entertain  the  opinions  of 
Washington,  of  Henry,  and  of  Jefferson  upon  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery ;  but  no  one  dares  in  public  or  in  private 
to  utter  those  opinions.  No  one  known  or  suspected 
to  be  an  abolitionist, — and  this  word  at  the  South  ob 
tains  a  very  extensive  signification, —  can  reside  or 
even  travel  in  the  slave  states  without  imminent  dan 
ger.  Such,  under  a  system  of  despotism,  is  the  lib 
erty  even  of  those  called  free. 


SECTION  IV. 
Slavery  in  its  influence  upon  Equality. 

Equality  it  has  been  stated,  may  be  considered  under 
three  points  of  view,  Political  Equality,  Social  Equal 
ity,  and  Equality  of  Wealth. 

Political  and  social  equality  are  essentially  depend 
ent  upon  equality  of  wealth.  The  truth  of  this  ob 
servation  is  confirmed  by  universal  experience.  Those, 
who  possess  the  property  of  a  country,  have  always 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  political  power.  Revolu 
tions  of  property  have  always  produced  political  revo 
lutions. 

Look  for  example  to  the  history  of  England.     So 


IN    AMERICA.  97 

long  as  the  wealth  of  that  country  consisted  princi 
pally  in  land,  and  that  land  was  possessed  by  a  few 
feudal  and  ecclesiastical  barons,  the  whole  political 
power  of  the  country  was  in  their  hands.  Towns 
having  sprung  into  existence,  inhabited  by  artisans 
and  traders,  whose  industry  created  a  new  species  of 
wealth,  these  towns  presently  attained  a  representa 
tion  in  the  national  legislature.  Their  influence  at 
first  was  trifling ;  but  it  has  steadily  increased  with 
the  increase  of  manufacturing  and  commercial  wealth, 
till  now  it  has  become  almost  predominant. 

The  history  of  France  furnishes  proof  to  the  same 
point.  So  long  as  the  nobility,  the  clergy  and  the 
magistrature,  possessed  the  larger  portion  of  property, 
they  found  no  difficulty  in  maintaining  their  political 
superiority.  But  no  sooner  had  the  progress  of  events 
thrown  a  preponderancy  of  wealth  into  the  hands  of 
the  tiers  etat,  than  they  began  to  devise  means  for  ob 
taining  political  power.  Hence  the  French  Revolution  ; 
which,  after  immense  struggles,  resulted  in  putting  the 
government  into  the  hands  of  the  more  wealthy  pro 
prietors.  The  unfortunate  adoption  of  too  narrow  a 
basis  led,  in  the  end,  to  the  present  imperial  usurpation, 
which,  however,  could  not  stand  for  a  moment,  did  not 
the  French  property  holders  support  it  as  a  means  of 
defence  against  those  who  have  no  property. 

If  in  the  Northern  States  of  the  American  Union 
there  exists  a  degree  of  political  equality  of  which 
the  world  offers  no  other  example  on  so  large  a  scale, 
the  equal  distribution  of  property  throughout  those 
states,  is  not  less  striking  and  remarkable. 

It  is  an  observation  as  curious  as  it  is  important, 
that  in  countries  in  which  industry  is  respectable,  and 
where  the  fruits  of  labor  are  secure,  property  always 
tends  towards  an  equal  distribution.  Everyman  pos 
sesses  as  a  means  of  acquirement,  his  own  labor ;  and 
though  there  be  a  very  considerable  difference  in  the 
capacity,  the  industry,  the  good  fortune  of  individuals, 
yet  this  difference  has  its  limits;  and  diversities  of  ac 
quisition  are  still  more  limited ;  for  in  general  the  in- 
9 


98  DESPOTISM 

dustry  of  the  rich  man  is  relaxed ;  he  is  more  inclined 
to  spend  than  to  accumulate ;  while  the  poor  man  is 
still  stimulated  by  the  desire  of  acquisition. 

It  appears  then  that  in  civilized  communities,  the 
natural  tendency  of  things  is  towards  equality.  In 
equality  can  only  be  maintained  by  artificial  means : 
by  laws  which  give  to  some  individuals  exclusive  ad 
vantages  not  possessed  by  others,  such  as  laws  of 
primogeniture,  of  entail,  laws  conferring  hereditary 
rights  and  privileges;  laws  creating  monopolies  of 
any  and  every  kind. 

If  political  equality  be  dependent  upon  equality  of 
wealth,  social  equality  is  equally  dependent  upon  it. 
Social  distinctions  which  appear  to  spring  from  other 
sources,  rise  in  fact  from  this,  arid  by  means  of  this 
are  kept  in  activity.  Blood  and  family  are  esteemed 
of  great  importance,  and  according  to  a  vulgar  notion 
which  we  hear  every  day  repeated,  are  said  to  afford 
a  much  nobler  and  more  respectable  aristocracy,  than 
that  of  mere  wealth.  But  the  founder  of  every  noble 
family  was  first  rich  before  he  became  noble.  It  is 
his  wealth  transmitted  to  his  descendants  to  which 
they  are  principally  indebted  for  distinction.  When 
they  become  poor  they  soon  fall  into  contempt.  This 
is  so  well  understood  that  whenever  a  Marlborough  or 
a  Wellington  is  raised  to  the  highest  rank  of  the  peer 
age  for  services  or  supposed  services  rendered  to  his 
country,  an  estate  is  bestowed  by  parliament,  to  ac 
company  the  title. 

Equality  in  general,  may  be  resolved  into  equality 
of  wealth.  All  depends  upon  that. 

Now  it  is  a  fact  clear  and  indisputable,  that  the  ex 
istence  of  slavery  in  a  country,  is  the  surest  and  most 
inevitable  means  of  producing  and  maintaining  an 
inequality  of  wealth.  This  is  not  said  with  any  re 
ference  to  the  unprivileged  class,  who  are  to  be  regard 
ed  in  this  view  not  as  men,  but  merely  as  things. 
Reference  is  had  only  to  the  free.  Slavery  necessarily 
produces  a  great  inequality  of  wealth  among  the  free. 

The  method  of  this  operation  is  obvious.     The  la- 


IN    AMERICA.  99 

bor  of  each  individual,  is  as  we  have  seen,  the  natural 
and  original  source  of  individual  wealth.  But  when 
a  man  is  enabled  to  possess  himself  of  the  fruits  pro 
duced  by  the  labor  of  a  large  number  of  individuals, 
to  whom  he  is  not  obliged  to  make  any  compensation 
beyond  a  bare  support,  his  wealth  tends  to  increase  in 
a  vast  and  disproportionate  ratio,  over  the  wealth  of 
that  individual  who  relies  solely  upon  his  own  labor. 

Moreover  slaves  are  a  sort  of  property  much  less 
valuable  when  held  in  small  portions,  than  when  pos 
sessed  in  masses.  Where  four  or  five  hundred  slaves 
are  owned  together,  the  doctrine  of  chances  may  be 
applied  to  the  numerous  casualties  to  which  this  kind 
of  property  is  liable.  The  average  annual  loss  and 
gain  under  ordinary  circumstances  will  be  pretty  regu 
lar,  and  may  be  made  a  subject  of  calculation.  But 
the  owner  of  only  four  or  five  slaves  may  at  any  time 
lose  them  all  by  a  sudden  disorder.  They  may  all  be 
taken  sick  at  the  same  time,  and  the  crop  may  perish 
for  want  of  hands  to  tend  it.  They  may  all  run 
away  together.  The  income  expected  from  them  is 
thus  liable  to  fail  entirely,  and  the  poor  man  is  con 
stantly  thrown  back  in  his  attempts  to  accumulate,  by 
the  necessity  he  is  under  of  investing  his  gains,  or  a 
considerable  part  of  them,  in  a  species  of  property 
which  when  possessed  in  small  quantities,  is  peculiar 
ly  insecure.^ 

But  there  is  another  effect  of  the  existence  of  slav 
ery  in  a  community,  much  more  extensive  and  power 
ful  in  its  operation.  Wherever  slavery  exists,  la 
bor  comes  to  share  the  degradation  and  contempt  of 
servitude,  while  idleness  is  regarded  as  the  peculiar 
badge  of  freedom.  But  when  idleness  is  general,  the 
great  mass  of  the  community  must  inevitably  be  poor. 
In  every  country  the  number  of  those  who  inherit 
any  considerable  portion  of  wealth,  is  small.  Per 
sonal  industry  is  the  only  resource  of  the  great  bulk 
of  the  citizens.  W^here  labor  is  honorable,  it  proves 

*  See  Chapter  TIL  Sec.  II.  for  additional  and  important  reasons  of 
the  tendency  of  slave-holding  property  to  accumulate  in  a  few  hands. 


100  DESPOTISM 

to  the  prudent  and  industrious,  a  resource  sufficient 
not  only  for  support,  but  for  the  accumulation  of 
wealth.  When  labor  is  not  honorable,  the  mass  of  the 
citizens  rather  than  degrade  themselves  by  submitting 
to  it,  will  be  content  with  the  merest  subsistence. 
Thus  it  happens  that  in  countries  in  which  slavery 
has  existed  for  a  considerable  length  of  time,  the  citi 
zens  are  divided  into  two  classes,  of  which  the  first 
and  much  the  smaller,  comprises  a  few  rich  proprie 
tors  who  at  the  same  time  are  large  slave-holders, 
while  the  second  class  contains  the  great  mass  of  the 
free  people,  persons  of  little  property,  or  none  at  all. 

This  was  the  state  of  society  in  all  the  republics  of 
ancient  Greece.  Those  republics  were  constantly  di 
vided  into  two  parties  or  factions.  The  oligarchical  or 
aristocratic  party,  composed  of  the  few  rich  and  their 
immediate  connections  and  dependents,  and  the  demo 
cratic  party,  as  it  was  called,  composed  of  the  bulk  of 
poor  freemen,  headed  and  led  on  by  some  ambitious 
deserter  from  the  aristocratic  ranks.  The  history  of 
ancient  Greece  consists  for  the  most  part,  in  the  mu 
tual  struggle  of  these  two  parties.  In  general,  the 
aristocratic  party  had  the  ascendency  ;  when  the  op 
posite  faction  came  into  power,  it  was  only  by  a  sort 
of  accident  commonly  of  very  limited  duration. 

This  serves  to  explain  a  curious  part  of  ancient  his 
tory,  to  which  we  have  no  parallel  in  modern  times, 
namely,  the  frequent  projects  for  an  artificial  distri 
bution  of  property,  and  of  laws  for  the  remission  of 
debts.  It  was  clearly  perceived  by  many  politicians 
of  antiquity,  that  a  certain  equality  of  wealth  was 
absolutely  essential  to  political  equality.  They  saw 
that  the  nominal  equality  of  all  the  citizens  amounted 
to  but  little,  so  long  as  all  the  wealth  of  the  state  was 
possessed  by  a  few,  and  the  great  bulk  of  the  citizens 
not  only  had  nothing,  but  were  even  deeply  in  debt  to 
the  few  rich.  Hence  the  various  projects  for  abolish 
ing  debts,  prohibiting  usury,  limiting  the  amount  of 
property  which  any  individual  might  possess,  and 
making  new  and  equal  distributions  of  existing  wealth. 


IN  AM2ftTCJL  101 

But  these  schemes  did  not  touch  the  root  of  the  evil. 
So  long  as  slavery  existed,  it  was  a  natural  and  inev 
itable  consequence  that  all  property,  however  equally 
it  might  at  first  be  divided,  should  presently  concen 
trate  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  leaving  the  mass,  idle  and 
poor, — poor,  because  idle. 

The  operation  of  the  same  cause  is  very  evident 
in  the  history  of  the  Roman  Republic.  A  few  patri 
cians  were  possessed  of  enormous,  wealth,  counting 
their  slaves  by  tens  of  thousands,  and  owning  almost 
entire  provinces,  while  the  great  bulk  of  the  citizens 
were  in  a  state  of  the  most  deplorable  poverty,  depend 
ing  for  their  support  upon  distributions  of  corn  from 
the  public  granaries,  upon  gratuities  bestowed  upon 
the  commonality  by  the  ambitious  rich,  and  on  the 
pay  and  plunder  of  the  military  service. 

Such  are  some  of  the  instances  which  history  af 
fords,  of  the  natural  effect  of  slavery  in  concentrating 
wealth  in  a  few  hands,  and  in  reducing  the  mass  of 
the  free  to  poverty  and  political  degradation.  His 
tory  also  furnishes  instances  of  the  contrary  process, 
by  which  liberty  has  given  a  spring  to  industry,  and 
has  thus  operated  to  disseminate  wealth,  and  to  create 
an  intermediate  body  between  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
a  body  which  with  the  increase  of  civilization  and 
knowledge,  is  destined  perhaps  to  embrace  the  great 
mass  of  mankind.  About  the  tenth  century  of  the 
Christian  era  the  greater  part  of  Europe  was  reduced 
by  a  combination  of  causes,  to  a  most  barbarous  con 
dition.  A  few  great  lords,  who  were  in  fact  little  bet 
ter  than  so  many  Tartar  or  African  chiefs  of  the  pre 
sent  day,  possessed  all  the  land,  the  only  sort  of  pro 
perty  which  remained  in  existence.  This  land  was 
cultivated  by  slaves.  The  mass  of  the  free  population 
depended  for  its  support  upon  the  bounty  of  the  feudal 
chiefs,  which  bounty  was  repaid  by  the  constant  at 
tendance  and  warlike  services  of  those  who  received 
it.  The  sole  occupation  of  the  free  was,  hunting  and 
war. 

Tn  this  state  of  things  we  can  discover  no  element 
9* 


•108  DESPOTISM 

of  social  improvement.  What  then  has  changed  the 
condition  of  Europe  to  the  state  of  comparative  ad 
vancement  in  which  we  now  see  it?  A  few  serfs 
flying  from  the  tyranny  of  their  lords,  founded  here 
and  there,  a  little  settlement.  They  built  walls  to 
protect  themselves  from  feudal  aggression.  In  many 
cases  they  resorted  to  some  ancient  city,  a  remnant  of 
former  times,  dwindled  to  a  ruin,  but  which  their  in 
dustry  helped  to  repair,  and  their  courage  to  defend. 
They  applied  themselves  to  the  mechanic  arts  and  to 
trade.  Gradually  they  amassed  wealth.  In  these 
cities  slavery  was  riot  tolerated,  and  the  serfs  of  the 
neighborhood  found  first  protection,  and  presently 
citizenship.  These  cities  thus  founded  and  thus  built 
up,  are  the  origin  of  that  great  class  of  merchants, 
manufacturers,  and  industrious  men,  to  whom  Europe 
is  indebted  for  its  present  advancement,  and  on  whom 
its  future  hopes  depend. 

The  same  tendency  of  servitude  to  produce  great 
inequalities  of  condition  among  the  free  is  as  visible 
in  the  history  of  America  as  of  Europe.  The  insur 
rection  of  the  slaves  of  St.  Domingo  had  for  its  imme 
diate  occasion  a  violent  quarrel  between  the  white 
and  the  mulatto  slave-holders  of  the  island.  While 
these  two  factions  of  the  free  were  engaged  in  a  bloody 
contest  on  the  question  of  political  equality,  the  slaves 
seized  the  opportunity  to  reclaim  their  liberties. 

Slavery  produces  the  same  effects  in  the  southern 
states  of  the  American  union,  which  it  ever  has  pro 
duced  in  all  the  world  beside.  Several  cases  have 
hitherto  operated  to  retard,  or  to  disguise  these  effects, 
but  they  are  becoming  every  day  more  and  more 
visible. 

The  poor  whites  of  the  old  slave  states  have  hitherto 
found  a  resource  in  emigration.  All  of  them  who  had 
any  spirit  of  enterprise  and  industry  have  quitted  a 
home  where  labor  was  disgraceful,  and  in  the  wide 
regions  beyond  the  mountains  have  attained  a  com 
fortable  livelihood,  and  have  amassed  wealth  by  means 
which  however  innocent  or  laudable,  thoy  could  not 


IN    AMERICA.  103 

employ  in  the  places  where  they  were  born,  without 
a  certain  degree  of  self-abasement.  But  by  a  fatal 
oversight,  a  most  disastrous  ignorance,  they  omitted 
to  exclude  that  great  source  of  evil,  the  bitter  effects 
of  which  they  had  experienced  in  their  own  persons ; 
arid  that  same  train  of  causes  is  now  in  full  operation 
in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  Missouri  and  Arkansas, 
which  drove  the  original  settlers  of  those  states  from 
Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina. 

As  to  the  southwestern  states,  they  offer  no  re 
sources  to  the  poor  whites.  The  cultivation  of  cotton 
has  attracted  thither,  and  still  continues  to  attract,  a 
host  of  slave-masters,  and  whole  gangs  of  slaves.  No 
man  can  emigrate  to  those  states  who  expects  to  live  by 
the  labor  of  his  hands,  unless  he  is  prepared  to  brave 
that  very  ignominy,  and  to  plunge  anew  into  that  very 
social  condition  which  makes  him  uneasy,  and  cuts 
him  off  from  all  chance  of  advancement  at  home. 

Political  parties  in  the  slave-holding  states,  within 
a  few  years  past,  have  begun  to  assume  an  aspect  en 
tirely  new,  and  one  which  gives  fearful  omen  that 
these  slave-holding  republics  are  about  to  follow  in 
the  career  of  those  ancient  states,  whose  policy  was 
founded,  like  theirs,  upon  a  system  of  slavery.  There 
is  already,  throughout  most  or  all  of  the  slave-holding 
states,  an  aristocratic  party,  and  a  party  which  calls 
itself  democratic.  The  aristocratic  party  is  composed 
of  the  rich  planters,  and  of  those  whom  their  wealth 
enables  them  to  influence  and  control.  The  demo 
cratic  party,  so  called,  is  composed  in  a  great  measure 
of  the  poor  white  folks,  with  a  sprinkling  of  ambitious 
aristocrats  for  leaders.  This  miscalled  democratic 
party, — for  it  is  in  fact  only  a  faction  of  the  white 
aristocracy, — by  the  natural  operation  of  the  slave- 
holding  system,  is  rapidly  increasing  in  numbers,  and 
with  the  increase  of  its  numbers,  the  social  degrada 
tion  and  the  destitution  of  its  members  will  also  in 
crease.  Measures  of  enlightened  policy  are  hardly  to 
be  expected  from  such  a  party,  even  if  it  could  obtain 
power  and  keep  it,  which  indeed  is  hardly  to  be  ex- 


104  DESPOTISM 

pected.  Such  is  the  force  of  habit,  the  power  of  preju 
dice,  the  invincible  stupidity  of  ignorance  that  these 
people  seem  incapable  of  perceiving  the  real  cause 
of  their  own  degradation.  They  are  apparently  as 
much  attached  to  slavery  and  are  as  ardent  in  its 
support  as  is  the  aristocratic  party,  thus  regarding 
with  a  blind  and  fatal  reverence  those  very  institu 
tions  which  crush  them  to  the  dust.  The  influence, 
however,  of  such  a  party,  composed  of  men,  poor, 
degraded,  ignorant  and  ferocious,  and  headed  by  some 
desperate  Catiline  of  the  aristocracy,  may  at  times, 
prove  extremely  disastrous,  not  to  the  southern  states 
alone,  but  to  the  whole  union. 


SECTION  V. 

Education  in  the  Slave-holding  States. 

That  the  state  ought  to  provide  for  all  its  citizens 
the  means  of  at  least  that  primary  education  which 
consists  in  the  knowledge  of  reading  and  writing,  has 
come  to  be  a  political  maxim  generally  acted  upon  in 
all  civilized  communities.  Even  such  despotic  gov 
ernments  as  Austria  and  Prussia  have  admitted  this 
most  important  article  into  their  political  code ;  and 
primary  instruction  is  provided  by  those  governments 
for  all  the  people  at  the  public  expense.  This  shows 
the  progress  which  the  idea  of  equality  has  lately 
made ;  for  equality  of  knowledge  is  a  most  essential 
part  of  political  and  social  equality. 

The  despotisms  existing  in  the  southern  states  of 
the  American  Union,  are  almost  wholly  regardless  of 
this  important  political  duty  of  general  education. 
We  have  already  seen  that  so  far  as  regards  the  un 
privileged  class,  the  attempt  to  impart  any  instruction 
to  them,  so  far  from  being  considered  a  duty,  is  de- 


IN    AMERICA.  105 

nounced  as  a  crime.  There  are  also  obvious  reasons 
why  no  general  public  provision  for  the  education  of 
the  privileged  class  has  ever  been  established. 

The  privileged  class  consists,  as  we  have  seen,  of 
an  oligarchy  of  rich  planters,  and  a  comparatively 
large  body  of  persons  with  little  or  no  property.  The 
rich  planters  know  the  value  of  education,  and  their 
wealth  enables  them  to  secure  it  for  their  own  children 
by  the  employment  of  private  tutors,  or  by  sending 
them  to  schools  and  colleges  at  the  North.  The  poor 
whites,  bred  up  in  ignorance,  have  no  adequate  idea 
of  the  value  of  knowledge,  or  of  the  importance  of  its 
diffusion.  The  rich  planters  have  no  inclination  to 
tax  themselves  for  the  benefit  of  their  poor  neighbors. 
Their  wealth,  education  and  influence,  enables  them 
to  control  the  legislation  of  their  respective  states ; 
and  perhaps  they  imagine  that  they  shall  best  secure 
their  own  importance  and  political  power,  by  keeping 
the  mass  of  the  free  population  in  ignorance.  The 
same  stroke  of  policy  which  they  play  off  against  their 
slaves,  they  play  oif  also  against  their  poorer  fellow 
citizens. 

What  has  been  done  in  a  public  way  for  the  ad 
vancement  of  education  in  the  southern  states,  has 
consisted  almost  entirely  in  the  establishment  of  col 
leges, — institutions  of  but  little  use  to  the  mass  of  the 
population,  and  which  are  almost  exclusively  fre 
quented  by  the  sons  of  the  rich  planters.  For  this 
purpose  money  has  been  liberally  appropriated. 

It  is  true  that  in  Virginia,  South  Carolina,  and  per 
haps  in  some  other  of  the  slave-holding  states,  a  trifling 
sum  is  annually  appropriated  expressly  for  the  educa 
tion  of  poor  children.  But  the  very  form  of  this  ap 
propriation,  which  extorts  from  those  who  wish  to 
avail  themselves  of  it,  a  humiliating  confession  of 
poverty,  is  an  insult  to  those  for  whose  benefit  it  is 
intended.  That  aid  which  might  be  justly  demanded 
as  a  right,  is  made  to  assume  the  character  of  a  charity. 
Besides,  the  amount  of  these  appropriations  is  so  small, 
and  their  management  is  so  miserable,  that  little  or  no 
benefit  results. 


106  DESPOTISM 

The  facts  of  the  case  then,  appear  to  be  these.  Not 
one  of  the  slave-holding  states  possesses  any  thing  like 
a  regular  system  of  common  schools,  or  has  made  any 
provision  at  all  worthy  of  notice,  for  disseminating 
the  rudiments  of  education  among  its  citizens.  In 
equality  of  wealth  has  produced,  as  a  natural  conse 
quence,  inequality  of  knowledge. 

This  condition  of  things  tends  greatly  to  aggra 
vate  the  social  and  political  inequalities  which  pre 
vail  throughout  the  southern  states.  It  is  in  vain 
that  people  who  cannot  read,  boast  of  their  political 
rights.  There  is  no  power  more  easily  abused  for  the 
promotion  of  private  ends,  than  the  power  conferred 
by  superior  knowledge.  A  man  who  cannot  read, 
may  be  said  to  be  politically  blind.  Those  who  see 
may  miss  the  way,  but  the  blind  have  hardly  a  chance 
to  find  it.  Nothing  is  more  easy  than  leading  them 
into  the  pit,  and  thus  making  them  the  instruments 
of  their  own  destruction.  It  is  the  extreme  ignorance 
of  those  who  compose  what  is  called  the  democratic 
party  at  the  South,  which  incapacitates  that  party 
from  projecting  and  carrying  through  any  real  and 
useful  reforms  in  the  social  polity  of  those  states,  and 
which  converts  it  into  the  mere  tool  and  stepping-stone 
of  artful  and  ambitious  men,  who  insinuate  them 
selves  into  its  confidence,  and  then  employ  that  con 
fidence  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  merely  private 
ends.  In  the  nature  of  things,  the  aristocracy  of  rich 
planters,  as  they  possess  all  the  wealth  and  all  the 
knowledge,  will  succeed,  in  the  long  run,  in  usurping 
the  whole  political  power.  As  might  be  expected, 
South  Carolina,  the  state  in  which  slavery  is  most 
predominant,  is  also  the  state  in  which  the  aristocracy 
of  rich  planters  domineers  without  control.  Already 
the  doctrine,  sanctioned  by  the  constitution  of  that 
state,  that  every  freeman  is  entitled  to  vote  at  elec 
tions,  is  violently  assailed  by  the  leaders  of  the  aris 
tocratic  faction.  They  insist  upon  a  property  qualifi 
cation.  It  is  easy  to  see  whither  this  doctrine  will 
lead.  By  the  concentration  of  wealth  in  few  hands, 


IN    AMERICA.  107 

which  is  the  natural  result  of  slavery,  the  number  of 
those  who  possess  the  requisite  qualifications  will 
continue  to  dimmish,  till  at  last  the  whole  political 
power  concentrates  in  form,  as  it  now  does  in  fact, 
in  the  hands  of  a  little  oligarchy  of  rich  slave-holders. 
But  though  the  equality  secured  to  all  freemen  by 
the  constitutions  of  the  slave-holding  states,  is  little 
more  than  nominal,  though  the  few  wealthy  and  well 
informed  generally  succeed  in  obtaining  the  political 
control,  and  then  employ  it  to  promote  their^own  pri 
vate  ends,  it  is  not.  therefore,  to  be  hastily  concluded 
that  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  poor  freemen  are 
valueless,  or  that  the  loss  of  those  rights  with  which 
they  are  threatened,  is  not  a  thing  to  be  most  seriously 
deprecated.  Having  a  vote  at  elections,  every  free 
man,  however  humble  his  condition,  is  sure  of  being 
treated  with  a  certain  degree  of  respect.  If  the  mass 
of  the  people  are  cajoled  out  of  their  votes,  they  still 
receive  for  them  a  sort  of  equivalent,  in  kind  words 
and  fair  speeches.  Let  them  be  deprived  of  this  title 
to  consideration,  and  the  native  insolence  of  power 
would  soon  display  itself,  and  they  would  be  trampled 
under  foot  with  the  same  remorseless  violence  now 
exercised  upon  the  free  blacks  and  the  slaves. 


SECTION  VI. 

The  military  strength  of  the  Slave-holding  States. 

The  military  strength  of  states  has  ever  been  es 
teemed  of  the  highest  importance  in  a  political  point 
of  view;  since  it  is  upon  their  military  strength  that 
states  are  often  obliged  to  depend  for  their  defence 
against  internal,  as  well  as  external  foes.  In  this 
particular  the  slave-holding  states  of  the  South  pre 
sent  an  aspect  of  extreme  weakness. 


108  DESPOTISM 

When  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  have  arms 
in  their  hands,  and  are  ready  and  zealo.us  to  meet  and 
repulse  any  invader,  the  military  strength  of  a  coun 
try  may  be  said  to  be  at  the  highest  point,  for  experi 
ence  has  abundantly  demonstrated  how  easy  it  is  to 
transform  citizens  into  soldiers.  But  those  citizens 
who  are  capable  of  being  transformed  into  soldiers 
must  be  principally  drafted  from  the  laborious  classes 
of  society.  The  hardy  cultivators  of  the  soil,  when 
driven  to  the  dire  necessity  of  beating  their  plough 
shares  into  swords,  have  ever  furnished  the  best  and 
most  patriotic  soldiers, — soldiers,  who  after  repulsing 
the  hostile  invader,  have  willingly  resumed  again  the 
useful  labors  of  their  former  calling.  Men  of  this  class 
composed  those  armies  of  the  revolution  to  whose  cour 
age,  fortitude  and  patient  spirit  of  endurance,  we  are 
indebted  for  our  national  independence. 

But  in  the  slave  states,  these  cultivators  of  the  earth, 
these  very  men  upon  whom  reliance  ought  to  be  prin 
cipally  placed  in  the  hour  of  danger,  would  in  that 
hour,  be  regarded  with  more  dread  and  terror  even 
than  the  invaders  themselves.  In  case  of  a  threaten 
ed  invasion,  so  far  from  aiding  in  the  defence  of  the 
country,  they  would  create  a  powerful  diversion  in 
favor  of  the  enemy. 

When  the  French,  in  the  first  years  of  the  revolu 
tion,  marched  into  the  neighboring  countries  proclaim 
ing  "liberty  and  equality,"  they  were  received  with 
such  good-will  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  as  en 
sured  a  speedy  triumph,  notwithstanding  the  superior 
force  arrayed  to  resist  their  progress.  The  events  of 
those  wars  placed  in  a  strong  light,  the  fact  obvious 
enough  in  itself,  but  which  had  not  then  attracted 
sufficient  attention,  that  the  inclination  of  the  inhab 
itants  of  a  country  is  much  more  apt  to  decide  its  fate, 
than  the  strength  of  armies  in  the  field.  When  half 
the  inhabitants  of  a  country  wish  success  to  invaders, 
it  is  not  easy  to  resist  them. 

Considering  the  odious  light  in  which  slavery  is 
now  regarded  by  all  civilized  nations,  it  is  not  likely, 


IN    AMERICA.  109 

in  case  the  United  States  became  involved  in  war 
with  any  people  of  Europe,  that  any  repugnance  would 
be  felt  on  the  part  of  the  hostile  state,  in  seeking  aid 
at  the  hands  of  the  slaves.  A  lodgement  being  effect 
ed  upon  some  part  of  the  Southern  coast,  by  an  army 
of  respectable  strength,  and  emancipation  being  pro 
mised  to  all  such  slaves  as  would  join  the  invaders,  a 
force  would  soon  be  accumulated  which  the  unassist 
ed  efforts  of  the  slave-holding  states  would  find  it  im 
possible  to  resist.  If  the  invaders  were  expelled  it 
would  only  be  by  troops  marched  from  the  North.  In 
such  a  crisis  the  fear  of  outbreaks  on  their  own  plant 
ations  would  keep  the  planters  at  home;  or  if  they 
assembled  in  force  to  resist  the  invaders,  their  absence 
would  be  likely  to  produce  such  outbreaks.  When 
a  servile  was  added  to  a  foreign  war,  between  the 
rage  of  the  masters  and  the  hatred  of  the  slaves,  it 
would  assume  a  most  savage  aspect. 

There  exist,  indeed,  sufficient  reasons  for  entertain 
ing  the  belief  that  an  experiment  of  this  sort  was 
projected  during  the  war  of  1812,  and  that  nothing 
but  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  at  that  time  had  slave 
colonies  of  her  own,  prevented  it  from  being  carried 
into  effect. 

The  difficulty  of  raising  troops  in  the  slave-holding 
states  is  obvious  from  the  fact,  that  Massachusetts 
alone  furnished  more  soldiers  to  the  revolutionary  ar 
mies,  than  all  the  slave-holding  states  united.  The 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  raising  troops  in  those  states, 
have  greatly  increased  since  that  time. 

The  military  weakness  of  a  slave-holding  commu 
nity  was  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  capture  of  the 
city  of  Washington  by  the  British  in  1814.  Could 
such  an  army  have  marched  such  a  distance,  and  ef 
fected  such  destruction  in  any  of  the  free  states  ?  To 
that  question  let  Concord  and  Lexington  reply.  Had 
the  slaves  of  those  counties  through  which  the  British 
army  marched,  been  free  citizens,  had  not  Washing 
ton  itself  been  a  slave  market,  the  British  troops  would 
never  have  arrived  within  sight  of  the  capitol. 
10 


110  DESPOTISM 

Should  the  slave-holding  states  become  involved  in 
a  war,  which  it  would  be  necessary  for  them  to  pro 
secute  from  their  own  resources,  they  would  be  oblig 
ed  to  depend  upon  a  standing  army  levied  from  among 
the  dregs  of  the  population.  Such  an  army  would  be 
likely  to  become  quite  as  much  an  object  of  terror  to 
those  for  whose  defence  it  would  be  levied,  as  to  those 
against  whom  it  would  be  raised.  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  disband  an  army  composed  of  men  destitute 
of  every  other  resource,  but  who  had  found  in  mil 
itary  service  a  means  of  living  at  the  expense  of 
others.  It  would  be  insisted,  and  with  some  show  of 
justice  too,  that  the  country  was  bound  to  maintain 
and  provide  for  those  to  whom  it  was  indebted  for  de 
fence  and  even  existence. 

One  other  observation  will  place  the  military  weak 
ness  of  the  slave-holding  states  in  a  clear  point  of 
view.  They  are  dependent  for  all  manufactured  arti 
cles  upon  foreign  supply.  Even  the  very  tools  with 
which  the  plantations  are  cultivated,  are  furnished 
from  abroad.  Every  article  of  equipment  necessary 
to  enable  an  army  to  take  the  field,  must  be  imported, 
and  unless  their  agricultural  productions  can  be  freely 
exported  in  return,  they  have  no  means  whereby  to 
purchase,  or  to  pay.  The  coast  of  the  slave-holding 
states  is  but  scantily  furnished  with  harbors  ;  all  the 
trade  of  export  and  import,  centres  at  a  few  points. 
These  points  may  be  easily  blockaded  by  a  small  na 
val  force.  The  slave  states  have  no  facilities  for 
equipping  or  manning  a  fleet.  In  a  naval  warfare, 
half  a  dozen  of  the  fishing  towns  of  New  England 
might  compete  with  the  whole  of  them,  and  a  strict 
blockade  of  their  harbors  for  three  or  four  years,  would 
reduce  the  whole  of  the  Southern  States  to  a  condi 
tion  of  the  greatest  distress. 

In  point  of  military  strength  the  slave-holding  states 
are  not  by  any  means  all  to  be  placed  upon  the  same 
level.  Such  states  as  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  where 
the  proportion  of  slaves  is  small,  are  very  strong  in 
comparison  with  Carolina  and  Louisiana,  where  the 
unprivileged  class  form  a  majority  of  the  population. 


CHAPTER    THIRD. 

ECONOMICAL    RESULTS    OF    THE    SLAVE-HOLDING   SYSTEM. 

SECTION  I. 

Effect  of  Slavery  upon  the  Sources  of  Wealth. 

The  public  wealth  consists  in  the  sum  total  of  the 
wealth  possessed  by  all  the  individual  members  of 
the  community.  Generally  speaking  a  community  is 
wealthy  in  proportion  to  the  relative  number  of  its 
members  who  are  possessors  of  property.  A  few  very 
rich  men  may  make  a  great  show,  and  create  a  false 
impression  as  to  the  wealth  of  a  community ;  but  a 
large  number  of  small  properties  added  together  will 
far  outrun  .  the  sum  total  of  a  few  large  ones.  The 
pay  of  the  officers  of  an  army  is  very  large  compared 
with  that  of  the  rank  and  file ;  but  the  sum  total  of 
the  pay  of  the  rank  and  file,  far  exceeds  in  amount 
the  sum  total  of  the  pay  of  the  officers. 

That  the  slave  states  of  the  American  Union  are 
excessively  poor  compared  with  the  free  states,  is  con 
ceded  on  all  hands.  The  slaves,  forming  in  some  of 
the  states,  the  majority  of  the  population,  are  incapa 
ble  of  holding  property.  They  are  not  the  owners 
even  of  their  own  labor,  and  of  course  they  can  con 
tribute  nothing  to  the  sum  total  of  the  public  wealth. 
The  class  of  poor  whites,  including  a  large  proportion 
of  the  free  population,  are  possessed  of  a  very  trifling 
property.  Almost  the  entire  capital  of  the  country  is 
in  the  hands  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
slave-holders ;  and  of  the  property  which  they  possess, 
a  great  portion  consists  in  the  minds  and  muscles  of 
the  unprivileged  class.  In  free  communities,  every 


112  DESPOTISM 

man  is  the  proprietor  of  his  own  muscles  and  intel 
lect  ;  but  as  these  commodities  however  valuable,  are 
not  the  subject  of  bargain  and  sale  in  the  market,  they 
are  not  usually  reckoned  as  property.  Compare  the 
tax  Valuations  of  the  slave-holding  states  with  that  of 
the  free  states,  and  it  will  be  discovered,  that  almost 
the  only  kind  of  property,  in  the  usual  acceptation  of 
that  word,  which  exists  at  the  South,  is,  the  land,  and 
the  buildings  upon  it.  Exclude  the  slaves,  and  the 
amount  of  what  is  called  personal  property  existing 
in  those  states,  is  exceedingly  small ;  and  upon  exam 
ination  it  will  be  found  to  fall  greatly  short  of  the 
amount  of  debt  always  due  to  the  North  and  to  Eu 
rope. 

In  estimating  the  actual  wealth  of  the  slave-hold 
ing  states,  the  amount  of  this  debt  ought  always  to  be 
taken  into  account.  A  great  part  of  the  banking  capi 
tal  of  those  states  is  borrowed  ;  and  so  of  the  money 
invested  in  rail-roads  and  other  public  works.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  planters  have  beside  great  pri 
vate  debts  of  their  own,  secured  by  mortgage  upon 
their  plantations  and  slaves,  many  of  them  being  lit 
tle  better  than  tenants  at  will  to  some  northern  capi 
talist,  to  whom  all  their  property  in  fact  belongs. 

As  the  Southern  States  possess  advantages  of  soil 
and  climate  peculiar  to  themselves,  it  becomes  an  in 
teresting  inquiry,  what  is  the  cause  of  this  compara 
tive  poverty  ? 

1.  Political  economists  have  generally  agreed  that 
labor  is  the  sole  source  of  wealth.  Whether  this  doc 
trine  be  literally  and  absolutely  true,  may  perhaps  be 
doubted ;  it  is  however  beyond  all  doubt,  that  labor 
is  a  very  principal  source  of  value. 

The  great  motive  to  labor,  the  great  inducement  to 
exertion,  that  motive,  that  inducement  which  has 
raised  man  from  the  primitive  barbarism  of  the  woods 
to  such  degrees  of  refinement  and  civilization  as  have 
yet  been  attained,  has  been,  expectation  of  reward. 
There  is  in  this  motive  a  sort  of  creative  power,  which 
seems  to  give  new  strength  and  alacrity.  It  even 


IN    AMERICA.  113 

possesses  the  capacity  of  making  labor  delightful.  The 
only  other  motive  powerful  enough  to  overcome  the 
natural  indolence  of  man,  is  the  fear  of  punishment ; 
but  that  is  a  melancholy  and  miserable  motive  which 
seems  to  add  a  new  distastefulness  to  labor,  and  to 
wither  up  the  energies  of  those  whom  it  influences. 

Now  with  respect  to  the  whole  unprivileged  class, 
that  is  to  say  the  principal  laboring  class  in  the  slave- 
holding  states,  their  only  motive  to  industry,  is  this 
second,  this  enfeebling  motive,  the  fear  of  punishment. 
Their  labor  is  compulsive  and  reluctant,  and  its  results 
are  proportionably  small. 

With  respect  to  the  other  laboring  class  at  the  south, 
to  wit,  the  poor  whites,  their  industry  is  paralyzed  by 
a  fatal  prejudice  which  regards  manual  labor  as  the 
badge  of  a  servile  condition,  and  therefore  as  disgrace 
ful, — a  prejudice  which  not  even  the  expectation  of 
reward  is  strong  enough  to  overcome.  It  is  a  preju 
dice  similar  to  this  which  has  operated  in  no  small 
degree  to  keep  Spain  in  a  stationary  state,  two  centu 
ries  behind  the  civilization  of  the  rest  of  Europe.  But 
even  Spain  in  this  respect,  is  more  fortunate  than  the 
American  slave  holding  states.  It  is  the  mechanic 
arts  which  the  Spaniards  regard  as  derogatory, 
whereas  agriculture  is  comparatively  respectable.  In 
the  slave  holding  states  of  America,  agricultural  labor 
is  the  most  derogatory  of  all,  because  the  labor  of  the 
field  most  assimilates  the  condition  of  a  freeman  to 
that  of  a  slave.  Whenever  such  notions  prevail,  they 
are  fatal  to  public  prosperity.  Poverty  keeps  pace 
with  pride. 

Take  the  slave-holding  states  together,  and  the  free 
inhabitants  are  about  twice  as  numerous  as  the  slaves. 
Yet  all  the  great  articles  of  production  in  which  the 
wealth  of  the  slave-holding  states  consists,  cotton,  to 
bacco,  rice,  sugar  and  flour,  are  produced  almost  ex 
clusively  by  slave  labor. 

What  then  is  the  occupation  of  the  free  ?  One  class, 
the  larger  slave-masters,  contribute  absolutely  nothing 
to  the  public  stock.  They  hardly  bestow  a  thought 


114  DESPOTISM 

even  upon  the  management  of  their  own  estates. 
Their  sole  business  is,  to  receive  the  income  and  to 
spend  it.  Another  class  of  the  free  population  ob 
tain  a  livelihood  by  acting  as  overseers  or  viceroys 
for  their  richer  neighbors.  They  are  thus  saved  from 
the  degradation  of  manual  labor  ;  but  it  is  a  hard  ser 
vice  by  which  they  earn  their  bread.  So  hard,  that  it 
is  very  seldom  performed  to  the  satisfaction  of  their 
employers.  The  planters  give  a  terrible  character  of 
the  overseers  as  a  class.  According  to  their  account, 
the  overseers  as  a  general  rale,  are  ignorant,  stupid, 
obstinate,  negligent,  drunken  and  dishonest.  For 
their  ignorance  they  are  hardly  to  blame,  considering 
what  scanty  means  of  education  this  class  enjoy. 
Stupidity  and  obstinacy  are  the  natural  fruits  of  igno 
rance.  Negligence  and  drunkenness  they  learn  from 
their  employers ;  and  if  overseers  are  dishonest  it  is 
little  to  be  wondered  at,  considering  the  temptations 
and  opportunities  by  which  they  are  surrounded,  and 
the  total  confusion  of  all  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
justice  and  injustice,  which  the  nature  of  their  employ 
ment  is  likely  to  produce. 

The  third  and  largest  division  of  the  privileged 
class,  compelled  by  absolute  want  to  the  disgraceful 
necessity  of  manual  labor,  work  with  an  unwilling 
ness  as  great  as  that  of  the  slaves,  and  with  still  less 
of  efficiency.  The  produce  of  their  labor  is  very  small. 
In  general  it  is  hardly  sufficient  to  support  them  in 
that  rude  and  semi-barbarous  condition  to  which  they 
have  been  accustomed. 

The  disastrous  effects  of  slave-holding  upon  free 
industry,  are  particularly  obvious  in  the  families  of 
the  small  planters,  and  of  those  farmers  who  possess 
but  five  or  six  slaves.  These  slaves  suffice  to  perform 
the  labors  of  the  farm,  and  when  the  land  is  fertile 
the  owner  of  it  lives  in  a  rustic  plenty.  A  family  of 
sons  grows  up  around  him.  He  has  no  occasion  for 
their  assistance  on  the  farm,  and  if  he  had,  they  would 
regard  the  labor  as  an  intolerable  disgrace.  The  boys 
grow  up  in  idleness,  with  little  or  no  education,  be- 


IN    AMERICA.  115 

cause  there  is  no  system  of  public  instruction,  and  the 
father  cannot  afford  to  send  them  to  a  distance  in  pur 
suit  of  schools.  They  arrive  at  man's  estate  without 
having  been  bred  to  any  regular  employment.  Each 
has  his  horse,  his  dog  and  his  gun ;  and  while  the  father 
lives  the  sons  have  a  home ;  they  spend  their  time  in 
hunting,  or  in  riding  about  the  country,  or  at  horse 
races,  frolics,  barbecues,  or  political  meetings.  There 
are  thousands  of  young  men  in  Kentucky  and  Tennes 
see  in  this  unhappy  predicament.  Full  of  spirit  and 
ambition,  active,  capable,  eager  for  some  honorable 
employment ;  but  condemned  by  the  social  system  of 
which  they  form  a  part,  and  by  the  unhappy  prejudi 
ces  against  useful  industry  which  that  system  engen 
ders,  to  an  idleness  which  presently  becomes  as  irk 
some  to  themselves,  as  it  is  fatal  to  the  public  pros 
perity.  When  habit  has  made  indolence  inveterate, 
and  when  they  are  too  old  to  apply  themselves  with 
zeal  or  success  to  a  new  course  of  life,  the  death  of 
the  father  cuts  off  the  support  they  have  hitherto  en 
joyed.  His  property  divided  among  a  numerous  fam 
ily,  gives  but  a  pittance  to  each.  That  pittance  is 
soon  spent.  Want  stares  the  unhappy  sufferers  in  the 
face.  They  lose  by  degrees  their  standing  and  re 
spectability.  The  weaker  spirited  among  them  sink 
down  to  the  lowest  depths  of  poverty  and  vice.  Those 
of  more  energy  emigrate  to  the  new  states  of  the  far 
west,  and  having  escaped  the  charmed  circle  in  which 
they  were  so  long  bound  up,  they  develop  a  new 
character,  and  like  their  fathers  before  them,  by  means 
of  their  own  personal  industry,  they  bring  a  farm  into 
cultivation  and  gradually  acquire  wealth.  But  if  they 
have  settled  in  a  slave  state,  that  wealth  is  generally 
invested  in  slaves  ;  and  their  own  children  are  bred 
up  in  that  same  style  of  helpless  indolence  of  which 
they  themselves  were  so  near  becoming  the  victims, 
and  which  their  children  perhaps  will  not  so  fortunate 
ly  escape. 

Thus  it  appears  that  one  plain  and  obvious  effect  of 
the  slave-holding  system  is,  to  deaden  in  every  class 


116  DESPOTISM 

of  society  that  spirit  of  industry  essential  to  the  in 
crease  of  public  wealth. 

2.  The  spirit  of  industry  is  riot  however  alone  suf 
ficient  for  the  accumulation  of  property.  Industry 
quickens  production  ;  but  to  accumulate,  it  is  neces 
sary  not  only  to  produce  but  to  save.  Economy  then, 
may  justly  be  regarded  as  the  second  great  source  of 
public  wealth. 

But  to  expect  any  thing  like  economy  from  the  un 
privileged  class,  would  be  extremely  ridiculous.  Econ 
omy  is  like  industry,  it  is  like  every  other  virtue, — it 
never  will  be  exercised  unless  there  is  a  motive  con 
stantly  operating  to  produce  it.  Now  in  the  condition 
of  servitude  no  such  motive  exists.  In  fact,  the  mo 
tives  are  all  the  other  way.  The  slave  receives  from 
his  master  a  certain  weekly  allowance  of  food.  Any 
attempt  to  lay  by  a  part  of  it,  would  be  absurd,  for 
as  soon  as  a  store  was  accumulated,  the  master,  if  he 
discovered  it,  would  stop  the  allowance  till  that  store 
was  consumed ;  or  at  all  events,  he  would  immediate 
ly  diminish  an  allowance  which  experience  had  shown 
to  be  more  than  sufficient.  It  would  be  the  same  with 
respect  to  clothing.  But  why  dwell  upon  this  topic? 
Is  it  not  plain  that  he  who  is  incapable  of  possessing 
property  is  alike  destitute  of  motives  to  produce  or  to 
save  ? 

If  slaves  are  improvident  with  respect  to  themselves, 
it  is  not  remarkable  that  they  are  still  more  so  with 
respect  to  their  owners.  No  matter  what  occurs ;  if 
the  cotton  house  is  on  fire ;  if  the  fences  are  down, 
and  the  cattle  destroy  the  corn ;  if  the  horses  stray 
away ;  if  the  tools  are  lost  or  broken  ;  it  there  hap 
pens  one  or  all  the  thousand  accidents  which  are  al 
ways  liable  to  diminish  the  value  of  their  master's 
property,  and  which  a  little  care  or  foresight  might 
have  prevented, — any  or  all  of  these  occurrences  are 
a  matter  of  perfect  unconcern  to  the  slave,  nor  will  he 
voluntarily  lift  a  finger  to  prevent  them.  If  indeed  he 
has  any  feeling  about  the  matter,  it  is  rather  an  in 
clination  to  destroy  than  to  save.  He  experiences  a 


IN   AMERICA.  117 

secret  delight,  in  the  losses  and  sorrows  of  a  master 
whom  he  hates. 

Nor  is  economy  likely  to  be  practised  to  any  con 
siderable  extent  by  the  hireling  overseers  to  whom  the 
management  of  the  great  plantations  is  intrusted. 
These  overseers  are  frequently  changed,  and  they 
have  little  or  no  interest  in  the  economical  manage 
ment  of  the  property  intrusted  to  their  charge. 

As  little  can  we  look  to  the  conduct  of  the  slave- 
masters  for  any  exhibition  of  the  virtue  now  under 
consideration.  It  is  an  old  observation  that  what 
comes  easy  goes  easy.  This  saying  is  verified  by  the 
conduct  of  brigands,  pirates,  and  robbers,  and  all 
that  class  of  men  who  live  upon  plunder.  It  applies 
with  equal  force  and  for  the  same  reason,  to  slave- 
masters,  who  generally  contrive  to  spend  all  they  get 
and  to  run  into  debt  all  they  can. 

We  have  thus  seen  that  with  respect  to  the  slaves 
and  their  owners,  idleness  and  improvidence  keep 
close  company.  The  same  is  the  fact  with  respect  to 
the  poorer  class  of  freemen.  Though  their  resources  be 
next  to  nothing,  they  still  contrive  to  imitate  in  their 
small  way,  the  careless  extravagance  of  their  richer 
neighbors. 

It  thus  appears  that  there  is  a  great  deficiency  of 
the  second  principal  source  of  public  wealth,  to  wit, 
economy,  arrrong  all  classes  of  the  population  of  the 
slave-holding  states  of  America. 

3.  A  third  great  source  of  public  wealth  consists  in 
invention,  by  which  is  meant,  the  discovery  of  new 
and  more  productive  applications  of  industry.  But  to 
call  this  great  means  of  increasing  the  productive 
power  of  a  community  into  action,  industry  must  be 
honorable.  That  ingenuity  which  busies  itself  in  ob 
servations  and  experiments  for  the  discovery  of  means 
to  produce  the  same  effect  with  less  labor,  seldom 
displays  itself  except  in  communities  in  which  the 
useful  arts  are  held  in  high  esteem.  Even  inventions 
made  elsewhere,  are  for  the  most  part  brought  into 
use  with  great  difficulty,  in  those  societies  in  which 


11.8  DESPOTISM 

men  of  education  and  reflection,  if  such  there  are, 
despise  useful  industry,  and  in  which  the  great,  busi- 
ne.,s  of  production  is  intrusted  to  ignorant  and  stupid 
slaves,  and  to  overseers  equally  ignorant  and  stupid. 
Under  these  circumstances  every  thing  proceeds  in  the 
same  dull  round,  without  change  or  attempt  at  im 
provement.  The  more  men  know,  and  the  more  they 
reflect,  the  more  convinced  they  are  how  limited  is 
the  actual  extent  of  their  progress.  Ignorance  is  arro 
gant,  dogmatical,  certain  that  it  knows  every  thing 
already.  The  idea  of  improvement  does  not  enter  into 
all  its  thoughts.  Hence  it  is  that  the  early  progress 
of  a  people  from  barbarism  to  civilization  takes  place 
by  such  hardly  perceptible  steps,  and  is  subjected  to 
so  many  hindrances  and  interruptions,  as  almost  to 
discourage  the  most  sanguine  believers  in  human  per 
fectibility,  and  to  have  given  rise  to  the  common 
opinion  that  savage  nations 'are  incapable  of  being 
civilized ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  history  of  our 
own  age  serves  to  show,  how  civilization,  once  set 
fairly  in  motion,  advances  with  an  impulse  continu 
ally  accelerated,  and  which  not  even  the  most  serious 
obstacles  can  long  retard. 

The  southern  states  derive  no  inconsiderable  advan 
tage  from  their  close  and  intimate  connection  with  the 
free  states  of  the  north,  of  which  the  social  system  is 
so  essentially  different.  By  this  meanPme  natural 
effect  of  the  institutions  of  the  south,  are  to  a  certain 
extent  counteracted,  especially  in  those  newly  settled 
states  into  which  there  has  been  a  considerable  influx 
of  northern  population. 


IN    AMERICA.  U9 


SECTION  II. 

Slavery  as  it  affects  the  amount  of  capital  required 
for  industrious  undertakings. 

All  enterprises  of  industry,  whether  agricultural, 
mechanical  or  mercantile,  require  a  certain  amount  of 
capital  for  their  successful  prosecution.  Every  thing 
which  enables  these  enterprises  to  be  carried  on  with 
a  less  amount  of  capital,  contributes  to  the  increase  of 
national  wealth;  arid  on  the  other  hand,  every  thing 
which  causes  a  greater  amount  of  capital  to  be  re 
quired,  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  all  new  under 
takings. 

In  free  communities,  where  the  laborers  have  their 
own  labor  at  their  own  disposal,  and  where  in  conse 
quence,  they  are  ready  to  sell  it,  either  by  the  day, 
the  year,  or  the  hour,  in  any  quantities,  that  is,  in 
which  it  may  be  needed,  beside  the  fixed  capital  in 
vested  in  lands,  workshops,  tools,  ships,  steamboats, 
&c..  there  are  required  two  separate  portions  of  floating 
capital,  one  to  be  invested  in  the  stock  to  be  operated 
upon,  and  the  other  to  be  employed  in  paying  the 
wages  of  labor.  But  no  more  labor  need  be  paid  for 
than  is  actually  employed.  Whenever  a  smaller  quan 
tity  will  answer,  a  portion  of  the  laborers  may  be  dis 
missed  ;  whenever  more  is  needed,  more  laborers  may 
be  employed. 

But  in  a  slave-holding  community,  in  addition  to 
these  three  portions  of  capital,  another  and  a  very 
large  portion  is  required,  in  order  to  commence  any 
industrious  enterprise  whatever ;  for  though  in  such 
a  community  there  is  no  payment  of  wages,  yet  a 
corresponding  quantity  of  capital  is  necessary  to  fur 
nish  food,  clothing,  and  medicines  for  the  slaves.  A 
fourth  and  additional  portion  of  capital  is  also  required, 
to  be  invested  in  the  purchase  of  the  laborers  them 
selves, — a  necessity  which  constitutes  a  great  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  all  industrious  enterprises. 


120  DESPOTISM 

Take  the  business  of  agriculture  for  example.  In 
the  new  cotton-growing  states,  a  very  small  sum  of 
money  will  suffice  to  purchase  a  plantation  of  several 
hundred  acres;  but  a  very  large  sum  of  money  is 
needed  to  purchase  the  laborers  necessary  to  carry  on 
the  cultivation  of  it.  Could  laborers  be  hired  by  the 
month  or  the  day,  as  in  free  communities,  a  moderate 
capital  would  enable  the  planter  to  command  the  labor 
he  would  need,  whereas,  under  existing  circumstances, 
no  person  can  start  a  new  plantation  in  Alabama  or 
Mississippi,  who  is  not  already  possessed  of  a  large 
capital,  or  able  to  command  it  in  the  shape  of  loans. 

We  shall  fall,  probably,  much  under  the  mark,  if 
we  assume  that  a  capital  of  five  thousand  dollars  in 
vested  in  hired  labor,  would  enable  as  many  acres  to 
be  cultivated,  as  a  capital  of  fifty  thousand  dollars 
invested  in  slave  labor.  The  consequence  of  this 
state  of  things  is  obvious.  It  gives  a  monopoly  of 
the  command  of  labor  to  those  who  are  already  pos 
sessed  of  large  means,  either  in  the  shape  of  property 
or  of  credit.  Persons  of  small  capital  have  no  chance 
to  compete  with  persons  of  large  capital,  because  by 
this  system,  a  large  capital  is  rendered  absolutely 
necessary  to  obtain  that  command  of  labor  without 
which  no  industrious  enterprise  can  be  carried  on. 
This  single  fact  is  sufficient  to  explain  that  tendency  of 
the  wealth  of  a  slave  community  to  concentrate  in  a  few 
hands,  which  has  been  stated  in  a  preceding  chapter. 

This  system  not  only  gives  a  monopoly  of  the  com 
mand  of  labor  to  those  who  are  already  rich,  but  it 
is  also  a  very  wasteful  and  extravagant  system.  It 
compels  the  operator  to  purchase  and  to  support  a 
much  larger  number  of  laborers  than  he  ordinarily 
has  occasi5n  for.  He  is  obliged  constantly  to  own 
and  to  feed  the  largest  number  ever  necessary  in  his 
business,  or  else  to  submit,  occasionally,  to  severe  loss, 
for  want  of  a  sufficiency  of  labor.  In  the  cotton 
planting  business,  for  instance,  a  given  number  of 
slaves  can  cultivate  a  considerably  larger  quantity  of 
cotton  than  they  can  gather  in ;  so  that  the  planter  is 


IN  AMERICA.  121 

either  obliged  to  submit  to  an  annual  loss  of  a  portion 
of  the  crop  which  he  has  brought  to  maturity,  or  else 
to  cultivate  less  than  he  otherwise  might,  for  the  sake 
of  gathering  all. 

The  cotton  crop,  however,  as  it  extends  the  labor 
of  cultivation  and  gathering  in,  through  almost  the 
entire  year,  is  less  surely  attended  with  this  sort  of 
loss,  than  are  the  grain  crops  and  farm  cultivation  of 
the  more  northern  slave-holding  states.  In  those  states, 
during  the  winter,  there  is  comparatively  little  occasion 
for  labor  on  the  farms.  During  all  that  time,  the  capi 
tal  invested  in  the  ownership  of  slaves,  is  unproductive, 
and  the  slave -master  is  saddled  in  addition  with  the 
expense  of  supporting  laborers,  for  whose  services  he 
has  no  occasion. 

What  a  great  discouragement  to  the  poor,  that  is,  to 
the  great  mass  of  the  free  population,  this  system  pre 
sents,  will  be  evident  from  a  few  considerations.  In 
those  parts  of  the  slave  states  in  which  slavery  pre 
dominates,  it  is  impossible  to  hire  free  laborers.  To 
work  at  all,  even  on  one's  own  little  tract  of  land,  is 
considered  a  sufficient  degradation ;  but  to  work  for 
another  person,  to  put  one's  self  under  his  direction, 
seems  to  approach  too  near  to  the  condition  of  slavery, 
to  be  at  all  endurable.  If  a  person,  therefore,  wishes  to 
employ  any  other  labor  than  his  own,  he  must  have  re 
course  to  slave  labor.  But  the  employment  of  the  labor 
of  other  people  is  in  general  absolutely  essential  to  the 
accumulation  of  wealth.  Where  a  man  merely  hoards 
up  the  profits  of  his  own  labor,  his  wealth  increases  only 
as  money  does  when  placed  at  simple  interest,  and 
the  industry  and  economy  of  a  long  life  will  accumu 
late  but  a  moderate  sum.  But  if  those  profits  are  in 
vested  in  the  employment  of  the  labor  of  other  people, 
his  wealth  then  increases  like  money  at  compound 
interest. 

But  when  to  employ  other  labor  than  one's  own,  it 

is  necessary  to  buy  the  laborers,  a  considerable  sum 

must  be  first  accumulated,  before  it  can  be  employed 

at  all ;  and  as  has  been  shown  in  another  place,  so 

11 


122  DESPOTISM 

long  as  the  number  of  slaves  which  a  person  possesses, 
is  small,  the  investment  is  exceedingly  precarious. 

The  necessity  of  a  great  capital,  and  the  wasteful 
ness  with  which  that  capital  is  employed,  sufficiently 
explain  the  fact,  why  in  all  those  occupations  in  which 
the  industry  of  the  free  states  has  come  into  competi 
tion  with  the  labor  of  slaves,  the  free  states  have  been 
able  to  undersell  their  rivals.  Slave  labor  is  only 
profitably  employed  in  those  kinds  of  business,  such 
as  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar,  in  which 
the  climate  and  soil  of  the  northern  states  prevent 
the  people  of  those  states  from  engaging.  In  the  cul 
tivation  of  grain,  the  raising  of  stock,  and  all  the 
operations  of  farming  agriculture,  the  profits  of  the 
slave-holding  cultivators  are  notoriously  small,  and 
many  a  large  slave-holder  grows  poor  in  that  same 
pursuit,  which  enriches  the  farmer  of  Ohio,  Pennsyl 
vania  and  New  York,  who  begins  life  with  no  other 
resource  than  his  own  capacity  to  labor.  Hence  that 
heavy  drain  of  emigration,  hence  that  fatal  domestic 
slave  trade,  which  aggravates  the  poverty  of  the  older 
of  the  slave  states,  by  carrying  off  that  labor,  which 
constitutes  the  principal  means  of  economical  pros 
perity. 

This  same  necessity  for  a  great  capital,  in  order  to 
undertake  any  industrious  enterprise,  and  the  same 
necessary  wastefulness  in  the  employment  of  that  capi 
tal,  afford  also  one  reason  among  many  others,  why  it 
has  been  found  unprofitable  to  set  up  manufacturing 
establishments  at  the  south.  It  is  not  only  necessary 
to  build  your  factory,  and  to  buy  your  machinery  and 
stock,  but  before  you  can  commence  operations,  you 
must  expend  a  still  larger  sum  in  the  purchase  of 
laborers.  Apart  from  everything  else,  a  sufficient  rea 
son  for  the  non-establishment  of  manufactures  at  the 
South,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact,  that  at  the  North,  the 
same  annual  quantity  of  manufactured  products  can 
be  turned  out,  with  the  employment  of  much  less  than 
half  the  amount  of  capital,  which  would  be  necessary 
for  the  same  purpose  at  the  South. 


IN   AMERICA.  123 

SECTION  III. 

Agriculture  in  the  Slave-holding  States. 

If  we  may  believe  John  Taylor  of  Caroline,  the 
author  of  Arator,  or  Mr.  Ruffin,  the  ingenious  editor 
of  the  Virginia  Farmers'1  Register,  the  best  agricul 
tural  periodical  ever  published  in  the  United  States, 
agriculture  at  the  South  does  not  consist  so  much  in 
cultivating  land,  as  in  killing  it.  The  process  is  as 
follows. 

A  quantity  of  virgin  soil,  in  those  of  the  slave  states 
in  which  any  such  soil  is  yet  to  be  found,  is  cleared 
up  every  winter.  The  trees  are  cut  down  and  burnt, 
or  merely  girdled,  and  left  to  decay  and  fall  with  the 
lapse  of  time.  When  tobacco  is  the  crop,  this  fresh 
land  is  planted  with  tobacco  each  successive  year  till 
its  fertility  is  exhausted.  When  it  will  no  longer  pro 
duce  tobacco,  it  is  planted  with  corn  or  wheat,  till  it 
will  not  afford  a  crop  worth  gathering.  It  is  then 
turned  out,  that  is,  left  unfenced  and  uncultivated,  to 
grow  up  with  thickets  of  sassafras  or  persimmon 
bushes,  or  with  forests  of  the  short-leaved  pine, — a 
majestic  tree  in  appearance,  but  the  timber  of  which 
is  subject  to  so  rapid  a  decay,  as  to  be  of  little  or  no 
value. 

In  the  cotton-growing  states,  corn  and  cotton  are 
planted  alternately,  till  the  land  is  completely  worn 
out.  When  its  original  fertility  is  exhausted,  no  fur 
ther  attempt  is  made  at  its  cultivation.  It  is  turned 
out,  and  the  labor  of  the  plantation  is  applied  to  new 
fields,  which  presently  undergo  a  similar  fate.  Thus, 
every  year,  a  certain  quantity  of  land  is  given  over 
as  worthless,  and  new  inroads  are  made  upon  the 
original  forest.  Agriculture  becomes  a  continual  pro 
cess  of  opening  new  fields,  and  abandoning  the  old. 

This  brief  account  of  southern  agriculture,  will  serve 
to  explain  the  remarkable  fact,  that  what  we  should 
call  improved  lands,  that  is,  lands  which  have  been 


124  DESPOTISM 

brought  into  cultivation,  are  generally  of  inferior  value 
and  price  to  the  adjoining  wild  lands  which  must  be 
cleared  up  before  they  can  be  planted.  Every  crop 
taken  from  a  field  diminishes  its  value ;  and  as  the 
number  of  successive  crops  which  can  be  taken  with 
out  reducing  the  land  to  a  state  of  barrenness,  is  not 
great,  the  diminution  in  its  value,  is  sufficiently  rapid. 
This  is  one  cause  of  the  sparseness  of  population  at 
the  south.  No  planter  ever  thinks  he  has  land  enough. 
Knowing  that  he  destroys  a  quantity  every  year,  he 
is  anxious  still  to  enlarge  his  domain  so  as  to  be  cer 
tain  of  having  a  supply  sufficient  to  meet  the  con 
sumption. 

Almost  the  only  wealth  in  the  southern  states  consists 
in  lands  and  slaves.  But  slaves  are  only  valuable  as 
cultivators  of  the  soil ;  and  as  the  productive  power 
of  the  soil  diminishes,  the  value  of  slaves  must  decline 
with  the  decreasing  amount  which  they  are  able  to 
produce.  The  inevitable  consequences  to  which  this 
system  of  agriculture  must  finally  lead,  are  sufficiently 
obvious.  The  soil  in  its  whole  extent,  being  at  length 
exhausted,  the  slaves  will  hardly  be  able  to  produce 
enough  for  their  own  support.  They  will  cease  to 
possess  any  marketable  value  ;  and  the  entire  mass  of 
the  population  will  sink  down  into  a  state  of  misera 
ble  poverty,  from  which  they  can  emerge  only  by  a 
complete  change  of  manners  and  habits,  and  a  tho 
rough  revolution  in  the  social  system. 

Nor  is  this  period  by  any  means  so  distant  as  may 
at  first  appear.  For  though  the  superficial  extent  of 
the  slave  holding  states  is  very  great,  the  quantity  of 
land  which  they  afford  of  sufficient  natural  fertility  to 
admit  of  being  cultivated  according  to  the  southern 
method,  is  not  great.  Deduct  the  mountains,  the  mo 
rasses  and  the  vast  pine  barrens,  and  but  a  moderate 
extent  of  land  will  remain,  a  part  of  which  has  already 
been  exhausted  and  deserted,  and  all  of  which,  with 
the  exception  of  some  alluvial  tracks,  along  the  water 
courses,  is  of  a  description  riot  fitted  long  to  withstand 
the  destructive  processes  of  southern  agriculture. 


IN    AMERICA.  125 

This  progress  of  pauperism,  presents  itself  under 
very  different  aspects,  in  different  states  of  the  union, 
according  to  the  antiquity  of  their  settlement,  and  the 
density  of  their  population.  In  the  newer  states,  in 
which  the  proportion  of  virgin  land  is  still  very  great, 
to  a  superficial  view  it  is  altogether  non-apparent. 
Its  early  operation  suggests  nothing  but  ideas  of  pub 
lic  prosperity  and  increasing  wealth.  But  there  is  a 
certain  point  where  the  tide  turns.  The  spendthrift, 
so  long  as  his  money  holds  out,  has  the  appearance 
and  enjoys  the  reputation  of  abundant  riches.  It  is 
only  when  his  resources  begin  to  fail,  that  the  reality 
of  his  condition,  and  the  true  nature  of  his  conduct 
become  apparent. 

Virginia  is  the  oldest  of  the  slave  states.  All  the 
rest  are  treading  in  her  footsteps.  From  her  unfortu 
nate  condition  at  the  present  moment  it  is  easy  to 
portend  what  theirs  must  presently  become.  Eastern 
Virginia,  including  all  that  portion  of  the  state  east  of 
the  Blue  Ridge,  presented  to  the  original  colonists,  a 
most  inviting  country.  Washed  on  one  side  by  a  spa 
cious  bay,  into  which  poured  numerous  rivers,  broad, 
deep  and  navigable,  all  the  lower  part  of  the  state  had 
received  from  the  hand  of  nature  such  unusual  facili 
ties  of  water  communication,  that  hardly  a  point  could 
be  found  twenty  miles  distant  from  navigable  waters  ; 
and  for  the  most  part,  every  plantation  had  its  land 
ing  place.  These  numerous  rivers  were  stored  and 
still  continue  to  be  stored  with  such  an  abundance  of 
fish,  fowl  and  oysters  as  might  alone  suffice  to  support 
a  numerous  population.  Above  the  falls  of  the  rivers 
was  a  hilly  diversified  country,  generally  rich,  and  if 
it  had  some  barren  tracts,  affording  spots  of  the  most 
exuberant  fertility. 

When  Eastern  Virginia  first  began  to  be  settled,  it 
afforded  beyond  all  question,  the  richest  and  most 
desirable  country  any  where  to  be  found  along  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  the  union. 

The  cultivation  of  tobacco  soon  became  so  profita 
ble,  that  the  more  industrious  of  the  colonists  grew 
11* 


126  DESPOTISM 

rich  by  it.  Most  unfortunately  they  invested  these 
profits  in  the  purchase  of  slaves  from  Africa.  The 
introduction  of  slave  labor  presently  proved  fatal  to 
the  industry  of  the  free.  But  this  circumstance  was 
little  thought  of  or  regarded,  so  long  as  the  tobacco 
cultivation  continued  to  increase,  and  to  bring  in  rich 
returns.  The  wealthier  planters  rose  to  the  condition 
of  nabobs.  They  extended  their  plantations,  increas 
ed  the  number  of  their  slaves,  and  spent  freely  the 
large  incomes  which  their  estates  produced.  The 
apparent  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  country  was 
very  great. 

By  degrees,  the  entire  surface  in  the  older  portions 
of  the  state  had  been  cleared,  planted  and  exhausted. 
Tobacco  requires  a  rich  soil,  and  the  impoverished 
land  would  no  longer  produce  it.  It  became  neces 
sary  to  abandon  this  species  of  cultivation,  first  in  the 
tide-water  districts,  and  afterwards  in  all  that  portion 
of  the  state  north  of  the  James  River.  The  culture  of 
tobacco  in  Virginia  is  now  confined,  for  the  most  part, 
to  a  few  of  the  southern  counties,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Blue  Ridge,  in  which  some  virgin  land  is  still  to  be 
found. 

The  cultivation  of  grain  succeeded  to  that  of  tobac 
co.  These  crops  were  far  less  profitable;  but  even 
these,  when  taken  in  constant  succession  from  the 
same  soil,  are  scarcely  less  exhausting.  The  lands 
have  continued  to  deteriorate  till  large  tracts  have  been 
abandoned  as  absolutely  worthless.  Meantime,  a 
constant  stream  of  emigration  has  been  pouring  out 
of  Virginia.  It  was  first  directed  to  Kentucky,  and 
the  states  north-west  of  the  Ohio.  It  then  consisted  of 
the  poorer  portions  of  the  white  population,  who  were 
the  first  to  suffer  from  the  general  decline.  This  emi 
gration  is  now  directed  towards  the  cotton  growing 
states  of  the  south-west.  It  is  greater  than  ever,  and 
embraces  the  wealthiest  men  and  the  largest  slave-hold 
ers,  who  find  that  slave  property,  which  is  valueless 
in  Virginia,  except  as  an  article  of  exportation,  can  be 
put  to  profitable  use  in  the  cultivation  of  cotton.  The 


IN    AMERICA.  127 

domestic  slave-trade  produces  another  equally  serious 
drain  upon  the  population  of  Eastern  Virginia.  In 
default  of  crops,  the  planters  have  no  other  means  to 
meet  their  expenses,  except  selling  their  slaves.  This 
affords  a  momentary  relief,  but  it  is  fatal  to  the  per 
manent  prosperity  of  the  country,  which  in  losing  its 
laboring  men,  in  losing  its  cultivators,  loses  the  only 
means  whereby  it  can  recover  from  its  present  decline. 

That  part  of  Virginia  which  lies  upon  tide  waters, 
presents  an  aspect  of  universal  decay.  Its  population 
diminishes,  and  it  sinks  day  by  day,  into  a  lower 
depth  of  exhaustion  and  poverty.  The  country  be 
tween  tide  waters  and  the  Blue  Ridge  is  fast  passing 
into  the  same  condition.  Mount  Vernon  is  a  desert 
waste ;  Monticello  is  little  better ;  and  the  same  cir 
cumstances  which  have  desolated  the  lands  of  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson,  have  impoverished  every  plant 
er  in  the  state.  Hardly  any  have  escaped  save  the 
owners  of  the  rich  bottom  lands  along  James  River, 
the  fertility  of  which  it  seems  difficult  utterly  to  destroy. 

This  thriftless  system  of  cultivation,  which  consists 
in  exhausting  a  field  and  then  abandoning  it,  prevail 
ed  originally  in  the  more  northern  states  as  well  as  in 
Virginia.  So  long  as  the  quantity  of  new  land  ap 
peared  inexhaustible,  this  method  of  culture  was  a 
natural  and  profitable  operation,  and  it  was  continued 
by  habit  long  after  its  bad  policy  became  apparent. 
Soon  after  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  war  the  same 
symptoms  of  exhausted  fertility  which  begun  to  show 
themselves  in  Virginia,  made  their  appearance  also  in 
the  more  northern  states.  The  farmers  presently 
became  fully  sensible  of  the  ruinous  course  they  were 
pursuing,  and  the  more  intelligent  began  to  turn  their 
attention  towards  an  improved  method  of  cultivation. 
The  custom  of  manuring,  introduced  by  degrees,  is 
now  considered  in  all  the  older  parts  of  the  country, 
an  essential  part  of  husbandry.  A  proper  rotation  of 
crops  is  very  generally  attended  to,  and  at  present  it 
is  well  understood,  that  lands  under  a  proper  system 
of  cultivation  ought  to  increase  rather  than  decline 


128  DESPOTISM 

in  fertility.  In  fact,  within  the  last  twenty  years  so 
great  has  been  the  improvement  in  agriculture  in  the 
older  portions  of  the  northern  states,  that  the  face  of 
the  country  has  assumed  a  new  aspect,  and  large  tracts 
which  were  formerly  considered  as  naturally  barren, 
and  worthless,  have  been  transformed  into  fertile  arid 
productive  farms.  Improvements  in  culture  keep  pace 
with  increase  of  population,  and  the  soil,  instead  of 
being  constantly  deteriorated,  is  constantly  increasing 
in  productiveness  and  value. 

Some  patriotic  citizens  of  Virginia  have  from  time 
to  time  made  great  exertions  to  promote  in  their  own 
state,  an  emulation  of  these  northern  improvements. 
But  their  well-intended  efforts  have  utterly  failed.  In 
deed  they  are  opposed  by  irresistible  obstacles.  In  the 
free  states  the  land  is  portioned  out  into  small  farms, 
tilled  by  the  hands  of  the  owners,  whose  attention  is 
exclusively  bestowed  upon  the  business  of  agriculture. 
There  is  a  certain  portion  of  intellect  devoted  to  the 
improvement  of  every  hundred  acres.  In  Virginia  the 
land  is  held  for  the  most  part  in  portions  ten  or  twenty 
times  larger,  and  even  were  the  owners  zealous  for  im 
provement,  on  farms  so  large  that  same  careful  over 
sight  and  attention  could  not  be  bestowed  on  every 
part.  But  then  the  owners  of  the  land  will  not  give 
their  attention  to  the  matter.  It  is  contrary  to  the 
whole  tenor  of  their  habits,  taste  and  education.  They 
have  slaves,  and  can  hire  an  overseer.  Why  should 
they  plague  themselves  with  the  details  of  a  business 
which  they  do  not  like,  and  do  not  understand? 

From  the  overseer  and  the  slaves,  as  they  have  no 
interest  in  improvement,  of  course  nothing  is  to  be  ex 
pected.  In  fact  it  is  the  obvious  interest  of  the  over 
seer  to  scourge  as  much  out  of  the  plantation  as  pos 
sible,  without  the  slightest  regard  to  future  conse 
quences,  especially  if  he  is  paid,  as  overseers  often  are, 
by  a  portion  of  the  crop. 

But  there  are  obstacles,  to  be  encountered  still  more 
serious  than  these.  Improvements  cannot  be  made 
except  by  the  expenditure  of  a  certain  portion  of  capi- 


IN    AMERICA.  129 

tal  upon  the  land.  Either  additional  slaves  must  be 
purchased,  or  else  a  certain  portion  of  the  labor  now 
employed  in  producing  a  small  crop,  must  be  diverted 
from  immediate  production,  and  employed  in  opera 
tions  undertaken  with  a  view  to  distant  returns.  But 
this  is  an  expenditure  which  the  greater  number  of 
planters  cannot  afford.  As  it  is,  with  all  their  slaves 
employed  in  scourging  out  of  the  land  the  greatest 
immediate  produce,  their  expenses  exceed  their  in 
comes,  and  they  are  running  into  debt  every  year. 
They  are  in  no  condition  to  risk  the  loss  or  curtail 
ment  of  a  single  crop  by  changing  the  established 
method  of  cultivation,  and  attempting  the  introduc 
tion  of  improvements. 

More  yet,  it  is  positively  bad  economy  for  a  Virginia 
planter  to  undertake  the  improvement  of  his  estate. 
Labor  is  the  only  means  of  resuscitating  the  exhausted 
lands  of  Virginia.  Slave  labor  is  the  only  kind  of  la 
bor  which  in  the  present  condition  of  things  can  be 
employed  for  that  purpose.  But  in  the  slave  market, 
the  Virginia  planter,  even  though  he  has  money  at 
command — which  is  a  case  sufficiently  unusual, — can 
not  afford  to  compete  with  the  slave  traders  from  the 
South  west.  The  profits  which  he  can  possibly  derive 
from  slave  labor  will  not  warrant  him  in  paying  so 
high  a  price.  Of  course  he  does  not  purchase;  the 
slaves  are  driven  off  to  be  employed  upon  cotton  plant 
ations,  while  the  lands  of  Virginia  are  left  unimprov 
ed,  and  still  declining  in  value.  Even  as  regards  the 
labor  of  slaves  already  in  the  planter's  possession,  it  is 
a  much  more  profitable  operation  to  emigrate  with 
these  slaves  to  Mississippi  or  Louisiana,  and  there  to 
employ  their  labor  in  raising  cotton,  and  killing  land, 
than  to  attempt  the  improvement  of  the  worn  out 
lands  at  home. 

That  high  price  of  slaves  in  the  south  western  mar 
ket,  which  the  Virginians  regard  as  a  fortunate  addi 
tion  to  their  diminishing  resources,  is  likely  to  prove 
in  its  ultimate  results,  the  greatest  curse  with  which 
the  state  could  be  visited.  If  it  were  not  for  the  do- 


130  DESPOTISM 

mestic  slave  trade,  slaves  would  scarcely  have  an  ex 
changeable  value  in  Virginia;  the  great  cheapness  of 
labor  would  facilitate  agricultural  improvements,  and 
the  total  impossibility  of  going  on  any  longer  in  the 
old  way,  would  lead  to  important  changes  in  the  ex 
isting  system.  As  it  is,  the  laboring  population  of  the 
country,  that  population  upon  which  all  its  wealth 
and  consequence  depends,  is  daily  drained  away.  The 
state  is  bleeding  at  every  pore,  and  a  fatal  lethargy 
must  be  the  consequence.  The  richest  soil,  the  most 
exuberant  fertility  without  labor  is  unproductive  and 
worthless.  What  will  be  the  condition  of  a  state 
which  has  sold  to  the  slave  traders,  the  only  laborious 
part  of  her  population,  whose  most  enterprising  citi 
zens  have  deserted  their  homes,  and  whose  exhaust 
ed  lands  hold  out  no  temptation  to  emigrants  from 
abroad  ? 

In  addition  to  the  obstacles  already  pointed  out  in 
the  way  of  agricultural  improvement  at  the  South, 
there  is  one  yet  to  be  mentioned,  of  a  still  more  per 
manent  and  decisive  nature.  It  is  a  well  established 
doctrine,  that  a  rotation  of  crops,  a  variety  and  a  very 
considerable  variety  in  the  articles  cultivated,  is  es 
sential  to  a  highly  improved  state  of  agriculture.  But 
such  a  rotation  and  variety  is  impossible  in  a  country 
which  is  exclusively  agricultural,  and  which  must 
necessarily  confine  itself  to  some  crops  that  will  pay 
the  expense  of  distant  transportation.  The  number 
of  these  crops  is  exceedingly  few,  and  they  are  all  of  a 
very  exhausting  character.  The  greater  number  of 
vegetable  productions  are  only  of  use  to  be  consumed 
on  the  spot;  and  such  a  consumption  cannot  take 
place  to  any  considerable  extent,  except  there  be  in 
the  neighborhood  a  manufacturing  population  to  take 
off  the  extra  supply.  Agricultural  improvements  have 
ever  kept  pace  with  the  extension  of  manufacturing 
industry.  The  reasons  have  been  already  given  why 
the  creation  of  a  manufacturing  population  under 
existing  circumstances,  is  impossible  at  the  south,  and 
that  subject  will  be  further  considered  in  the  follow 
ing  section. 


IN    AMERICA.  131 

The  condition  of  agriculture  in  Eastern  Virginia, 
is  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  its  condition  in  Mary 
land,  in  North  Carolina,  in  South  Carolina,  and  in  the 
older  parts  of  Georgia.  In  the  two  latter  states  the 
cultivation  of  cotton  has  been  attended  by  conse 
quences  exactly  similar  to  those  produced  in  Virginia, 
by  the  culture  of  tobacco.  After  pouring  in  upon 
those  states  a  momentary  flood  of  wealth,  which  glit 
tered  and  disappeared,  it  has  left  the  soil  in  a  state  of 
exhaustion  and  barrenness,  for  which  no  present  reme 
dy  appears. 

The  south-western  states,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana  are  now  the  El  Dorado  of  the  slave-holders. 
In  those  states,  cotton  at  present  prices  is  a  very  pro 
fitable  crop.  The  demand  for  slaves  is  brisk.  Good 
field  hands  sell  for  nine  hundred,  or  ten  hundred  dol 
lars.  The  slaves  of  Maryland,  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  are  purchased  up  in  droves  for  this  market, 
and  numbers  equally  large  are  moved  off  to  the  south 
west  by  emigrating  planters.  But  these  slaves,  if  they 
are  lucratively  employed  in  cultivating  cotton,  are 
employed  at  the  same  time,  in  killing  land.  Slavery 
will  presently  visit  the  south-west  with  the  same  blight 
of  exhaustion  and  barrenness,  which  has  already 
alighted  upon  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  In  propor 
tion  to  the  rapidity  with  which  the  apparent  immedi 
ate  prosperity  of  the  south-western  states  is  now  ad 
vancing,  will  be  hastened  the  era  of  their  decay. 

In  the  free  states  of  the  Union,  the  wealth  of  the 
west  promotes  the  wealth  of  the  east.  The  more 
prosperous  are  the  new  states,  the  more  prosperous 
are  the  old.  At  the  south  it  is  not  so.  The  new 
states  are  aggrandized  at  the  expense  of  the  old 
ones.  But  this  aggrandizement  has  nothing  in  it, 
solid  or  permanent.  For  a  short  time  a  great  annual 
income  is  obtained ;  but  it  is  obtained  only  by  the  an 
nual  consumption  of  a  portion  of  that  natural  fertility, 
in  which  consists  the  only  real  capital  of  those  com 
munities,  and  this  capital  being  presently  exhausted, 
their  short  lived  prosperity  vanishes  like  a  shadow. 


132  DESPOTISM 


SECTION  IV. 

Manufactures  and    Commerce  in  the  Slave-holding 
States. 

No  merely  agricultural  nation  ever  yet  attained  a 
high  degree  of  prosperity,  or  civilization.  To  attain 
that  result  it  is  necessary  that  manufacturing  and 
commercial  industry  should  combine  with  agriculture. 
All  these  three  branches  of  industry  are  so  sympathet 
ically  connected,  that  neither  of  them  alone  can  be 
carried  to  any  great  degree  of  perfection. 

There  have  already  been  suggested  several  reasons 
why  manufactures  cannot  prosper  in  the  slave-holding 
states.  It  is  necessary  here  to  recapitulate  them  and 
to  bring  them  together  in  a  single  point  of  view. 

1.  Skill  in  the  greater  part  of  the  mechanic   and 
manufacturing  arts,  is  not  consistent  with  the  state  of 
total  ignorance  and  barbarism  in  which  it  is  judged 
the  best  policy  that  the  unprivileged  class  should  be 
kept.     Skilled  laborers  are  and  must  be,  more  intel 
ligent  and  better  informed,  than  those  of  an  ordinary 
kind. 

2.  Such  skill  is  still  less  consistent  with  that  social 
condition  which  deprives  those  subjected  to  it,  of  all 
motive  to  acquire  that  degree  of  expertness,  on  which 
the  success  of  most  mechanical  operations  so  essen 
tially  depends. 

3.  With  respect  to  the  laboring  part  of  the  free  pop 
ulation,  the  acquisition  of  manufacturing  skill  is  little 
to  be  expected  from  the  state  of  ignorance,  indolence 
and  depression  which  are  to  them  the  natural  results 
of  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  community  of  which 
they  form  a  part. 

These  three  reasons  go  to  cut  off  the  supply  of  that 
kind  of  labor  essential  to  the  prosecution  of  manufac 
turing  operations.  But  besides  labor,  there  is  needed 
knowledge,  tact,  skill  and  judgment  in  the  oversight 
and  direction  of  labor,  and  capital  to  set  it  m  operation. 


IN    AMERICA.  133 

1.  With  regard  to  the  oversight  and  direction  of 
manufacturing  operations,  persons  are  very  rarely  to 
be  found  among  the  native  population  of  the  southern 
states,  possessed  of  the  necessary  qualifications.     The 
whole  course  of  their  education  and  habits  is  averse  to 
that  system  of  order,  economy,  and  minute  and  exact 
attention,  which  such  a  business  requires. 

2.  As  regards  capital,  it  has  been  shown  in  a  pre 
vious  section,  under  what  disadvantages  all  industri 
ous  operations  labor  at  the  south,  from  the  compara 
tively  large  amount  of  it,  necessary  to  set  them  in  ope 
ration.     In  any  manufacturing  business  for  example,  it 
is  necessary  to  have  capital  enough  over  and  above  all 
that  is  required  for  the  fixtures  and  stock,  to  purchase 
the  laborers  who  are  to  carry  it  on. 

From  the  combined  operation  of  these  several  causes 
it  results,  both  in  theory  and  in  fact,  that  manufac 
turing  processes,  on  any  large  scale,  are  almost  un 
known  at  the  south,  and  that  even  the  commonest  me 
chanical  arts  are  at  a  very  low  ebb. 

It  is  obvious  at  once,  when  the  condition  of  the 
various  classes  of  the  population  at  the  south  is  con 
sidered,  and  when  regard  is  had  to  the  state  of  manu 
factures,  that  trade  cannot  greatly  flourish.  The  un 
privileged  class  have  nothing  to  sell  except  what  they 
steal,  and  of  course  they  have  but  little  to  buy.  The 
laboring  freemen,  produce  but  little,  and  of  course  are 
able  to  purchase  but  little.  The  class  of  wealthy 
slave-holders  is  very  limited  in  number,  and  a  large 
part  of  their  income  is  often  spent  at  a  distance  from 
home.  The  principal  mercantile  operations  consist 
in  the  purchase  and  shipment  of  the  great  agricultural 
staples,  a  business  which  is  carried  on  for  the  most 
part  by  means  of  English  or  northern  capital,  and  at 
the  same  time  by  English  or  northern  agents,  and 
English  or  northern  shipping. 

Neither  manufactures  nor  commerce  can  be  regard 
ed  as  adding  any  thing  considerable  to  the  wealth  of 
the  slave-holding  states. 
12 


134  DESPOTISM 


SECTION  V. 

Instability  and  uncertainty  of  values  in  the  Slave- 
Holding-  States. 

The  necessity  which  the  southern  planters  are  un 
der  of  confining  themselves  to  the  production  of  a  few 
great  staple  crops,  has  been  already  stated  arid  ex 
plained.  Slave  labor  in  the  United  States,  was  first 
applied  to  the  cultivation  of  tobacco.  But  the  foreign 
demand  for  that  article  has  been  stationary  ever  since 
the  revolutionary  Avar,  while  the  domestic  demand 
increases  only  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  pop 
ulation.  Since  the  facilities  of  transportation  between 
the  western  states  and  the  Atlantic  seaboard  have  been 
so  much  increased  by  the  construction  of  canals  and 
railroads,  the  farmers  of  Ohio  have  gone  extensively 
into  the  cultivation  of  tobacco.  They  produce  it  by 
free  labor,  and  the  quantity  of  slave  labor  which  can 
be  profitably  employed  in  this  culture  is  more  likely 
to  increase  than  to  diminish. 

The  second  application  of  slave  labor  in  the  United 
States,  was  to  the  cultivation  of  rice.  That  cultiva 
tion  however  is  and  always  has  been,  confined  to  a 
narrow  tract  of  country  along  the  sea  coast  of  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia  ;  and  as  the  demand  for  the 
article  is  nearly  stationary,  any  considerable  increase 
of  the  production  would  so  diminish  the  price  as  to 
make  it  an  unprofitable  business. 

Sugar  is  produced  chiefly  in  the  southern  districts 
of  Louisiana.  This  culture  has  been  fostered  by  a 
protective  duty,  but  the  climate  is  too  cold  and  un 
steady  for  its  extensive  prosecution.  A  few  favorable 
seasons  created  a  very  false  idea  of  the  profits  of  this 
cultivation.  A  series  of  cold  seasons  has  corrected 
these  hasty  impressions.  Even  including  Texas  and 
Florida,  the  production  of  cane  sugar  in  the  United 
States  must  always  be  restricted  to  a  limited  area. 

The  cultivation  of  cotton,  an  article  of  which  the 


IN    AMERICA.  135 

consumption  has  so  remarkably  increased  within  the 
last  fifty  years,  has  alone  prevented  the  entire  depre 
ciation  of  southern  property.  There  has  been  thus 
furnished  a  crop,  to  the  production  of  which  the  labor 
of  slaves  could  be  profitably  applied,  and  which  has 
prevented  such  a  competition  in  the  other  limited  ap 
plications  of  slave  labor  above  enumerated,  as  would 
have  rendered  them  utterly  ruinous. 

The  cotton  cultivated  in  the  United  States  is  of  two 
distinct  kinds,  known  in  commerce,  as  Sea  island,  and 
upland  or  short  staple.  The  Sea  island  cotton  has  a 
long  silky  fibre  which  adheres  so  slightly  to  the  seed, 
as  to  be  easily  removed  by  means  of  two  wooden  roll 
ers  turning  upon  each  other,  which  suffer  the  cotton 
wool  to  pass  between  them,  but  which  exclude  and 
separate  the  seed.  This  kind  of  cotton  is  employed 
only  in  the  finest  manufactures,  and  its  consumption  is 
very  limited.  It  bears  a  much  higher  value  than  the 
other  description  but  it  is  less  productive,  and  requires 
great  care  and  labor  in  its  preparation  for  market. 
The  sea  air  seems  essential  to  it,  and  its  cultivation 
is  limited  to  an  alluvial  tract  along  the  sea  coast  of 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  The  cultivation  of  this 
kind  of  cotton  was  introduced  about  the  conclusion  of 
the  revolutionary  war ;  but  it  has  always  been  of  so 
limited  an  extent  as  to  hold  out  no  relief  to  the  great 
body  of  the  slave-holders. 

The  upland  or  short  staple  cotton,  has  a  short  fibre 
adhering  with  such  tenacity  to  the  seed,  as  to  require 
the  saw  gin,  an  invention  of  the  ingenious  Whitney, 
for  its  separation.  This  kind  of  cotton  succeeds  as 
well  in  the  interior  as  near  the  sea,  and  it  is  this  kind, 
the  consumption  of  which  has  so  rapidly  increased. 
It  first  began  to  be  cultivated  as  a  crop  about  the  be 
ginning  of  the  present  century.  For  the  first  twenty 
years  its  production  was  principally  confined  to  Geor 
gia  and  the  Carolinas.  Since  that  time  it  has  spread 
into  the  new  states  of  the  south-west,  which  now  pro 
duce  more  than  three  fourths  of  the  entire  crop,  which 
in  the  period  since  the  peace  with  Great  Britain  in 


136  DESPOTISM 

1815,  has  risen  from  two  hundred  thousand  bales,  to 
upwards  of  three  millions,  per    annum. 

The  cultivation  of  cotton  is  the  only  employment  of 
slave  labor  which  admits  of  profitable  extension.  The 
price  of  cotton  regulates  the  price  of  slaves,  and  in 
cidentally,  the  value  of  all  kinds  of  property  at  the 
south.  When  all  values  are  thus  made  dependent 
1  upon  a  single  pursuit,  they  are  necessarily  subject  to 
great  fluctuations.  When  there  is  a  great  variety  of 
employments,  there  is  established  in  consequence,  a  sort 
of  average  permanency  of  profits.  Agriculture  may 
be  flourishing,  though  manufactures  and  commerce  are 
suffering  a  temporary  depression  ;  and  some  branches 
of  agriculture  may  be  profitable,  though  others  fail. 
At  the  south,  every  thing  is  staked  upon  the  cast  of 
a  single  die  ;  and  as  is  apt  to  happen  in  all  such  cases, 
the  planters  are  either  in  a  state  of  high  prosperity 
which  leads  to  great  speculations  and  the  creation  of 
great  debts,  or  else  in  a  state  of  depression,  ruinous 
both  to  northern  lenders,  and  to  southern  borrowers. 

The  commercial  fluctuations  of  the  United  States 
generally  take  their  origin  at  the  south.  A  high  price 
of  cotton  creates  at  the  south  a  feeling  of  wealth  and 
a  strong  disposition  to  contract  debts,  while  it  pro 
duces  at  the  north,  a  strong  disposition  to  give  credit. 
Even  though  the  price  of  cotton  continues  high,  the 
expectation  of  the  planters  runs  so  far  beyond  the 
reality,  that  they  presently  become  unable  to  fulfil 
their  engagements;  and  if  a  decline  in  the  price  of 
cotton  should  follow,  their  inability  becomes  total,  and 
the  severe  losses  experienced  in  consequence  by  the 
merchants  and  manufacturers  of  the  north,  throw 
their  business  also  into  a  temporary  confusion. 

There  is  much  reason  to  expect  that  these  violent 
fluctuations  in  the  value  of  southern  property  will 
presently  terminate  in  a  general  and  permanent  de 
preciation.  Whether  lands  and  slaves,  ten  years 
hence,  shall  have  any  considerable  value  in  any  of 
the  southern  states,  seems  to  depend  very  much  upon 
the  fact,  whether  or  not  the  consumption  of  cotton 


IN   AMERICA.  137 

shall  keep  pace  with  its  production.  If  production 
should  overrun  consumption,  the  market  will  be  glut 
ted,  the  price  will  fall,  the  business  will  become  un 
profitable,  and  unless  some  new,  extensive  and  profita 
ble  application  of  slave  labor  should  unexpectedly  be 
discovered, — an  event  which  is  highly  improbable — 
land  and  labor  throughout  the  south,  must  undergo  a 
great  decline  in  value. 

There  are  weighty  reasons  for  anticipating  this  result 
within  a  moderate  period.  Twice  already  within  the 
last  twenty  years  the  production  of  cotton  has  so  over 
run  consumption  as  to  reduce  the  profits  of  the  busi 
ness  to  the  lowest  ebb.  The  price  has  since  rallied, 
but  this  rise  of  profits  has  produced  a  new  rush  into 
the  business,  and  a  vast  emigration  from  the  more 
northern  of  the  slave-holding  states,  which  must  re 
sult  in  a  great  increase  of  the  production.  On  the 
other  hand  the  consumption  of  cotton  goods  has  al 
ready  reached  a  point,  which  makes  its  extension  con 
tinually  more  difficult.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  it  can  go  on  increasing  for  twenty  years  to  come, 
as  it  has  for  twenty  years  past.  That  increase  has 
been  principally  caused  by  cotton  fabrics  superseding 
for  certain  purposes,  the  use  of  linen  and  woollen  cloths. 
That  is  a  process  which  has  a  certain  limit  and  which 
cannot  be  repeated.  The  consumption  of  cotton  goods 
will  doubtless  continue  to  increase ;  but  this  increase 
of  consumption  will  be  more  upon  a  par  than  hereto 
fore,  with  the  increased  consumption  of  other  manu 
factures. 

Whatever  the  increased  demand  for  cotton  may  be, 
the  slave-holding  states  of  the  Union,  are  liable  to  en 
counter  a  severe  competition  in  supplying  it.  All  that 
portion  of  the  American  continent  south  of  the  United 
States  is  well  fitted  for  the  production  of  this  article. 
Cotton  of  a  very  superior  quality  is  produced  to  a 
large  amount,  in  Brazil,  and  all  Spanish  America 
will  presently  be  entering  the  market  as  a  rival. 

Great  exertions  are  now  making  in  India,  by  British 
cultivators,  to  improve  the  quality  of  Indian  cotton, 


138  DESPOTISM 

and  not  without  success.  The  quantity  of  this  article 
worked  up  by  the  British  manufacturers  is  steadily 
increasing;  and  when  we  recollect  how  completely 
the  British  indigo  planters  in  India,  succeeded  in  de 
stroying  the  cultivation  of  indigo  in  the  United  States, 
which  was  once  a  very  considerable  business,  by  pro 
ducing  a  superior  article  at  a  less  price,  the  competition 
of  the  Indian  cotton  planters,  however  some  ignorant 
persons  may  ridicule  it,  is  by  no  means  to  be  despised. 

Additional  competition  is  to  be  expected  from  Africa. 
The  Egyptian  cottons  are  already  well  known  as  of 
very  superior  quality;  and  it  seems  highly  probable 
that  the  French  will  presently  introduce  the  same  sort 
of  cultivation  into  their  Algerine  possessions. 

On  the  whole  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  single 
prop  of  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  forms  a  most  slender, 
fragile  and  uncertain  support,  on  which  to  rest  the 
prosperity  of  an  extensive  and  increasing  population. 


SECTION  VI. 

Comparative  Progress  and  Prosperity  of  the  Free 
and  of  the  Slave-holding  States. 

It  is  a  fact  too  obvious  to  be  denied  even  by  the 
most  prejudiced  observers,  that  the  slave-holding  states 
of  the  Union  are  far  inferior  to  the  free  states,  in  every 
thing  that  constitutes  civilization, — in  wealth,  in  ed 
ucation,  in  the  useful  and  ornamental  arts,  in  public 
institutions,  in  public  spirit,  in  literature,  in  science, 
in  density  of  population,  in  facility  of  intercourse,  in 
the  splendor  of  cities,  the  neatness  of  towns,  the  com 
forts  and  conveniency  of  individual  dwellings. 

Of  the  thirteen  states  which  originally  composed  the 
Union,  slavery  still  prevails  in  six.  It  has  been  abol 
ished  in  the  others,  where  indeed  it  never  existed  to 


IN    AMERICA.  139 

any  considerable  extent.  These  old  free  states,  by 
the  separation  of  Maine  from  Massachusetts  and  the 
admission  of  Vermont,  increased  to  nine  in  number, 
include  an  area  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  square  miles;  the  extent  of  the  six  old  slave 
states  is  upwards  of  two  hundred  thousand  square 
miles.  By  the  first  census  in  1790,  the  former  contained 
a  population  of  1,908,000  souls ;  the  population  of 
the  latter  amounted  to  1,848,000.  Fifty  years  after, 
by  the  census  of  1840,  the  population  of  the  old  free 
states  amounted  to  6,760,880,  while  the  population  of 
the  six  old  slave  states  was  only  3,826,323.  The  cen 
sus  of  1850  shows  the  continued  operation  of  the  same 
causes,  the  free  section  having  gained  upon  the  popu 
lation  of  1840  to  the  extent  of  1,553,834,  while  the 
increase  in  the  slave  section  is  but  713,312,  or  less 
than  half  as  much. 

Density  of  population,  and  the  existence  of  towns  and 
cities,  are  essential  to  any  great  degree  of  social  pro 
gress.  Brought  thus  into  contact,  mind  acts  upon  mind ; 
what  is  discovered  by  one  soon  becomes  known  to  all ; 
emulation  leads  to  new  discoveries  and  enterprises  • 
competition  constantly  exerts  its  beneficial  influence  ; 
the  division  of  labor,  that  essential  means  of  improve 
ment,  is  not  practicable  among  a  scattered  population ; 
cities  are  the  central  points  from  which  knowledge,  en 
terprise,  and  civilization  stream  out  upon  the  surround 
ing  country. 

In  the  eight  free  States  above  referred  to,  we  find 
three  large  cities,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Bos 
ton,  the  first  of  which  is  generally  regarded  as  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  Union.  There  are  not 
less  than  twenty  other  considerable  towns  which  are 
growing  with  rapidity,  and  several  of  which  promise 
to  rise  to  the  first  importance.  Villages  containing  five 
or  six  thousand  inhabitants,  are  quite  numerous  ;  new 
ones  are  springing  up  every  day,  and  others  are  pass 
ing  from  the  class  of  villages  into  that  of  towns. 

How  different  a  picture  is  presented  by  the  old  slave 
States  !  They  contain  but  one  city  deserving  the 
name,  and  that  one?  be  it  observed,  is  situated  upon 


140  DESPOTISM 

the  verge  of  the  free  States,  and  owes  the  principal 
part  of  its  importance  to  that  very  circumstance.  In 
wealth,  trade  and  public  institutions,  in  literature, 
science  and  general  refinement,  Baltimore  is  far  in 
ferior  to  either  of  the  great  cities  of  the  north.  Charles 
ton  is  a  little  more  than  a  place  of  deposite  for  the  pro 
duce  of  the  surrounding  country,  and  a  retreat  for  the 
neighboring  planters  from  the  unhealthiness'of  their 
plantations.  It  has  been  about  stationary  for  this  last 
thirty  years,  and  the  same  is  true  of  Alexandria,  Nor 
folk,  Savannah,  and  other  ancient  towns.  Jamestown, 
the  original  capital  of  Virginia,  has  ceased  to  exist,  the 
ruins  of  an  old  church  steeple  are  its  only  memorial. 
Williamsburg  the  second  capital  of  Virginia,  has  long 
been  in  decay.  Such  existence  as  it  has,  it  owes  to  the 
ancient  college  established  there.  Richmond,  the  pre 
sent  capital  presents  a  more  thriving  appearance, — 
but  to  judge  by  the  depopulation  and  impoverishment 
of  the  surrounding  country,  it  must  soon  share  a  simi 
lar  fate. 

What  are  called  towns  in  these  States,  would  for 
the  most  part,  be  esteemed  at  the  north,  as  little  better 
than  villages.  In  addition  to  the  small  number  scat 
tered  along  the  sea-coast,  there  are  a  few  of  more  re 
cent  growth,  situated  on  the  great  rivers,  generally  at 
the  head  of  steam-boat  navigation.  They  are  points 
at  which  the  produce  of  the  country  is  collected  for 
shipment,  and  whence  imported  goods  are  distributed 
through  the  adjoining  country ;  but  so  few  and  far  be 
tween,  as  scarcely  at  all  to  vary  the  dull  monotony  of 
a  poorly  peopled  country  which  presents  at  the  same 
time,  all  the  rudeness  of  a  new  settlement,  and  all  the 
marks  of  old  age  and  decay. 

If  the  slave  holding  states  formed  a  separate  and  in 
sulated  nation,  cut  off  from  communication  and  inter 
course  with  the  free  states  of  the  north,  there  is  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  they  would  fall  rapidly  behind 
hand,  in  the  career  of  civilization.  As  it  is.  they  are 
sustained  and  dragged  along  by  the  energy  of  their 
northern  sisters.  Improvements  are  first  started  and 


IN  AMERICA.  141 

put  into  execution  at  the  north,  then  slowly  and  faint 
ly  imitated  at  the  south.  The  best  educated  and  most 
accomplished  men  of  the  southern  states  have  passed 
their  youth  at  northern  schools  and  colleges  ;  such 
seminaries  for  education  as  the  southern  states  possess, 
are  supplied  almost  entirely  with  northern  or  foreign 
teachers.  The  whole  trade  of  the  south,  so  far  as  re 
lates  to  transactions  on  the  large  scale,  is  in  the  hands 
of  northern  merchants  who  carry  on  this  important 
branch  of  business  for  which  the  native  citizens  of 
those  states,  seem  to  lack  the  requisite  knowledge,  sa 
gacity,  perseverance  and  application.  The  learned 
professions,  physic,  divinity,  and  even  the  law,  are 
more  or  less,  recruited  from  the  same  source.  The 
newspapers  have  northern  editors ;  even  the  composi 
tors  who  set  the  types  are  imported.  The  same  is  the 
case  with  all  mechanics  who  have  any  considerable 
skill  in  the  art  they  profess.  Southern  rail  roads  are 
built  with  northern  capital  and  by  northern  engineers 
and  contractors.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  erect  a  large 
hotel,  or  block  of  ware-houses  without  the  aid  of  north 
ern  artificers.  The  southern  states  are  supplied  with 
books  and  periodicals  from  northern  presses  ;  and  it 
seems  to  be  only  by  a  close  and  intimate  union  with 
the  north,  that  civilization  at  the  south  is  enabled  to 
make  any  progress,  or  even  to  preserve  itself  from  de 
cline.  It  is  worthy  of  special  remark  however,  that 
those  northern  men  who  emigrate  to  the  south  imbibe 
by  degrees,  the  feelings  and  the  habits,  the  indolence, 
and  the  incapacity  of  the  population  by  which  they 
are  surrounded.  They  are  unable  to  transmit  to  their 
children  any  of  those  qualities  which  they  carried  with 
them  from  home.  These  children,  bred  up  after  the 
southern  fashion,  are  thoroughly  southern.  It  is  con 
stantly  necessary  that  new  blood  should  be  transferred 
from  the  warm  and  vigorous  circulation  of  the  north, 
to  revive  and  quicken  the  veins,  palsied,  and  made 
stagnant  by  the  poison  of  slavery. 


CHAPTER  FOURTH. 

PERSONAL  RESULTS  OF  THE  SLAVE-HOLDING  SYSTEM. 


SECTION  I. 

Personal  Effects  of  Slavery  upon  the  members  of  the 
privileged  class. 

By  personal  results  of  the  slave-holding  system 
those  results  are  intended,  which  exhibit  themselves 
in  the  personal  character  of  the  members  of  a  slave- 
holding  community. 

Slavery  has  already  been  explained  to  be  in  its  na 
ture,  a  protracted  state  of  war.  All  its  results  are 
sufficiently  conformable  to  such  an  origin. 

Soldiers  possess  a  free  and  self-confident  air,  and 
when  among  friends  and  not  irritated  or  opposed,  they 
exhibit  a  frank  good  humor,  an  easy,  companionable 
disposition,  which  renders  their  society  agreeable,  and 
causes  their  company  to  be  generally  courted.  Their 
military  duties  often  leave  them  an  abundance  of  lei 
sure  ;  for  long  intervals,  they  often  have  nothing  to  do 
but  to  seek  amusement,  and  they  give  a  warm  and 
hearty  welcome  to  all  who  are  disposed  to  join  and  aid 
them  in  that  pursuit. 

These  same  traits  of  manners  are  sufficiently  con 
spicuous  among  the  privileged  class  of  our  southern 
aristocracies.  Though  a  large  portion  of  that  class  is 
/  destitute  of  education,  and  of  any  real  refinement,  yet 
almost  every  member  of  it  has  more  or  less,  a  certain 
patrician  bearing,  a  consciousness  of  his  own  superi 
ority  which  gives  him  an  air  of  manliness  and  dignity, 


DESPOTISM    IN    AMERICA.  143 

but  which  it  must  be  confessed,  degenerates  too  often 
into  rudeness  and  braggadocio.  The  wealthier  and 
better  educated,  passing  almost  the  whole  of  their 
lives  in  a  round  of  social  pleasures,  have  attained  to  a 
considerable  perfection  in  the  art  of  pleasing ;  and 
those  who  visit  the  southern  states  of  the  Union  for  the 
first  time,  are  generally  captivated  by  the  politeness, 
the  hospitality,  the  attentions,  the  good  humor  of  the 
people. 

Manners  however  are  far  from  being  any  certain  in 
dex  of  character,  and  they  are  often  carried  to  a  high 
pitch  of  refinement,  in  cases  where  all  the  virtues 
which  they  seem  to  indicate,  are  lamentably  deficient. 

The  soldier  nursed  in  blood  and  robbery,  however 
mildly  and  gently  he  conducts  himself,  is  at  best  only 
a  tame  tiger,  not  rashly  to  be  trusted.  His  passions 
are  violent  arid  unmanageable,  accustomed  to  indul 
gence,  and  impatient  of  control.  It  is  the  same  with 
the  slave-master.  Habituated  to  play  the  tyrant  at 
home,  unshackled  regent  and  despotic  lord  upon  his 
own  plantation,  where  his  wish,  his  slightest  whim  is 
law,  the  love  of  domineering  possesses  all  his  heart.  The 
intercourse  of  society  has  taught  him  the  policy  and 
the  advantages  of  mutual  concession  in  little  things, 
and  the  trifling  points  of  ordinary  politeness  he  yields 
with  the  ready  willingness  of  a  well-bred  man.  Be 
yond  this  he  is  not  to  be  trusted.  Alarm  his  preju-  1 
dices,  his  self-love,  his  jealousy,  his  avarice,  his  ambi 
tion  ;  cross  his  path  in  any  shape  whatever  ;  assume 
the  character  of  a  rival  or  a  censor ;  presume  to  doubt 
his  perfect  wisdom  and  immaculate  virtue;  and  from  a 
laughing,  good  natured  companion,  he  is  changed  at 
once,  into  a  fierce,  furious,  raving  and  raging  enemy. 
He  boils  and  almost  bursts  with  passion  ;  he  answers 
argument  with  invective ;  instead  of  reasons,  he  re 
plies  to  you  with  insults.  Not  content  to  restrain  his 
hate  within  the  usual  limits  of  civilized  life,  he  thirsts 
for  your  blood.  He  murders  you  in  a  duel ;  assaults 
you  in  the  streets  with  pistols  and  Bowie  knife ;  or  de 
liberately  shoots  you  from  the  door  of  his  house,  with 


144  DESPOTISM 

a  double-barrelled  gun.  The  fear  of  the  law  does  not 
restrain  him.  In  the  southern  states,  a  gentleman  is 
never  hung.  The  most  cold-blooded  and  deliberate 
murderers,  in  the  upper  classes  of  society,  escape  with 
a  fine  or  a  short  imprisonment.  The  gallows  is  re 
served  for  abolitionists,  negro-stealers,  and  poor  white 
folks. 

I.  The  condition  of  society  in  the  southern  states, 
even  among  the  most  refined  and  best  educated  por 
tion  of  the  people,  exhibits  frightful  evidences  of  FE 
ROCITY  OF  TEMPER,  such  as  a  state  of  everlasting  war 
might  be  expected  to  produce.  Thucidides  remarks, 
that  from  the  time  the  Athenians  laid  aside  the  cus 
tom  of  going  armed,  civility  and  refinement  began  to 
make  a  steady  progress  among  them.  This  is  a  point 
to  which  the  people  of  the  southern  states  have  not 
yet  attained.  They  generally  carry  arms  ;  but  the 
pistols,  knives  and  dirks,  their  favorite  weapons,  are 
of  a  kind  more  fit  for  foot-pads  and  assassins,  than  for 
well-intentioned  citizens.  In  several  of  the  states  it 
has  been  attempted  to  suppress  by  penal  enactments, 
this  barbarous  practice  of  carrying  deadly  weapons. 
These  laws  are  never  enforced,  and  it  is  scarcely  pos 
sible  they  should  be.  To  carry  arms  in  the  state  of 
things  existing  at  the  south,  seems  absolutely  neces 
sary.  If  his  slaves  resist,  how  else  shall  the  mastei 
maintain  his  authority  ?  Those  who  have  been  sub 
dued  by  force,  must  be  kept  under  by  force  ;  and  if 
the  armed  conquerors,  in  moments  of  anger,  some 
times  turn  their  weapons  against  each  other,  that 
is  what  is  liable  to  happen  among  all  collections  of 
armed  men.  What  wonder  if  that  inhuman  and 
blood-thirsty  spirit,  which  the  tyrannical  rule  they  ex 
ercise,  keeps  more  or  less  alive  in  the  bosom  of  all 
slave  masters,  often  bursts  out  in  full  fury  in  their 
quarrels  with  each  other  ?  The  familiarity  with  which, 
under  the  influence  of  excited  passion,  they  talk  of 
murder  is  only  to  be  equalled,  by  the  savage  ferocity 
with  which,  under  the  same  influence,  they  often  com 
mit  it.  The  atrocity  of  southern  duels  has  long  been 


IN    AMERK'A,  145 

notorious, — but  what  duel  can  be  compared  with  those 
"rencontres"  of  which  we  so  often  read  accounts  in 
the  southern  papers, — accounts  which  among  the  peo 
ple  of  those  states  seem  to  carry  with  them  all  the  in 
terest  of  a  bull-baiting  or  a  cock-fight, — in  which  two 
men  or  more,  armed  to  the  teeth,  meet  in  the  streets, 
at  a  court-house  or  a  tavern,  shoot  at  each  other  with 
pistols,  then  draw  their  knives,  close,  and  roll  upon 
the  ground,  covered  with  dust  and  blood,  struggling 
and  stabbing  till  death,  wounds,  or  the  submission  of 
one  of  the  parties,  put  an  end  to  the  contest  ?  These 
scenes,  which  if  they  take  place  at  the  north  at  all,  ap 
pear  but  once  an  age,  and  then  only  among  the  lowest 
and  most  depraved  of  the  emigrantpopulation,  are  of  fre 
quent  and  almost  daily  occurrence  at  the  south,  among 
those  who  consider  themselves  the  most  respectable 
people.  Andrew  Jackson,  late  president  of  the  United 
States,  and  regarded  as  a  most  illustrious  citizen,  had 
been  engaged  in  several  such  affrays. 

II.  IMPROVIDENCE  is  a  vice  of  the  most  dangerous 
character.  The  ancients  were  so  impressed  with  the 
multitudinous  evils  and  miseries  to  which  it  gives 
occasion,  that  they  raised  prudence  to  the  dignity  of 
one  of  the  four  cardinal  virtues.  Improvidence  is 
however  a  failing,  which  is  apt  to  prevail  to  a  great 
extent  in  a  slave-holding  community.  The  care 
less,  headlong  rapidity  with  which  a  planter  spends 
his  money,  is  proverbial.  This  childish  profusion 
has  even  been  raised  among  them  to  the  rank  of  a  vir 
tue  ;  it  is  described  as  the  mark  of  a  noble  minded 
man ;  while  economy  is  decried  and  stigmatized  as 
mean  and  little.  This  sort  of  profusion  may  dazzle 
and  delight  the  weak-minded  and  the  thoughtless.  It 
is  very  clear  however  that  it  seldom  implies  any  of 
that  benevolence  or  magnanimity  which  it  has  been 
supposed  to  indicate. 

It  generally  originates  in  the  desire  to  gratify  some 
whim  of  the  moment,  or,  what  is  oftener  the  case,  in  the 
desire  to  be  admired  as  a  person  of  wealth  and  liber 
ality.     It  is  one  way  of  gratifying  the  universal  de- 
13 


146  DFSPOT1SM 

sire  of  social  superiority.  A  planter  will  spend  some 
hundreds  upon  an  entertainment,  and  the  next  morn 
ing  will  refuse  an  extra  pair  of  shoes  to  a  lame  old 
negro,  who  has  labored  for  him  all  his  life.  Ask  one 
of  these  lavish  spendthrifts  to  do  an  act,  not  of  be 
nevolence  merely,  but  of  justice,  by  setting  a  slave  at 
liberty,  and  he  will  laugh  in  your  face.  We  hear  of 
many  acts  of  profusion  at  the  south,  few  acts  of  gen 
erosity.  It  is  not  there,  that  institutions  are  endowed 
for  purposes  of  public  charity.  No  associations  exist 
there,  or  next  to  none,  for  charitable  purposes.  When 
a  subscription  is  to  be  raised  for  some  object  of  public 
benevolence,  the  contribution  of  our  southern  planters 
is  extremely  scanty.  They  lavish  thousands  on  their 
own  pleasures,  and  the  companions  of  those  plea 
sures ;  they  bestow  little  or  nothing  upon  the  suffer 
ings  of  strangers.  Indeed  it  would  be  absurd  to  ex 
pect  it.  They  who  are  not  moved  by  the  scene  of 
poverty,  degradation  and  distress,  which  their  own 
plantations  every  day  present,  how  can  they  be  affect 
ed  by  the  comparatively  little  miseries  of  which  they 
only  hear,  or  which  they  but  casually  see? 

The  quantity  of  money  that  can  be  got  is  a  limited 
sum;  the  quantity  that  can  be  spent  is  indefinite. 
Take  the  southern  states  throughout,  and  it  is  probable 
that  seven  slave-masters  out  of  ten.  live  beyond  their 
income.  The  labor,  the  fruits  of  which  would  have  suf 
ficed  to  make  fifty  families  comfortable  and  happy,  be 
ing  engrossed,  with  the  exception  of  the  barest  subsist 
ence  to  the  laborers,  by  a  single  family,  does  not  suffice 
to  make  that  single  family  happy  or  even  comforta 
ble.  Improvidence  subjects  to  all  the  miseries  of  ac 
tual  poverty.  Men  in  the  possession  of  large  estates 
are  tormented  all  their  lives  by  sheriffs  and  duns,  and 
at  their  death,  leave  large  families  brought  up  in  all 
the  luxury  of  wealth,  and  the  helplessness  of  habitual 
indolence,  penniless  and  unprovided  for5  a  prey  to  the 
bitterest  miseries  of  want. 

111.  IDLENESS,  says  the  copy  book,  is  the  mother 
of  all  the  vices.  If  any  one  doubt  the  truth  of  this 


IN    AMERICA.  147 

ancient  and  homely  maxim,  to  be  convinced  of  it, 
he  need  only  spend  a  year  or  two  in  the  south.  He 
will  find  a  great  many  idle  people  there.  Almost 
all  the  owners  of  slaves  have  hardly  any  occupa-* 
tion  except  to  amuse  themselves.  Born  and  bred; 
to  this  occupation  they  become  incapable  of  any  other.! 
One  would  suppose  that  having  so  much  leisure  time, ' 
they  might  turn  their  attention  to  the  study  of  agri 
culture,  an  art  upon  which  so  wholly  depends  not  their 
private  income  only,  but  the  public  wealth  of  the  com 
munities  to  which  they  belong.  But  no, — they  have 
no  taste  for  such  pursuits,  and  they  leave  the  man 
agement  of  their  plantations,  entirely  to  their  over 
seers.  This  neglect  however  ought  not  to  be  wholly 
ascribed  to  their  disinclination  for  regular  and  useful 
pursuits.  If  they  go  much  upon  their  plantations,  so 
many  cruel  sights  come  under  their  view,  they  are  so 
harrassed  by  petitions  and  complaints,  they  find  them 
selves  so  oppressed  by  the  cares  of  authority,  that  they 
hasten  to  relieve  themselves  from  the  burden,  and  to 
shift  it  to  the  shoulders  of  some  case-hardened  mana 
ger.  All  despotisms  are  alike.  What  happens  to  an 
oriental  sultan,  happens  to  an  occidental  slave-master. 
The  weight  of  empire  presses  too  heavily  upon  their 
effeminate  and  feeble  necks.  Both  alike  spend  in  idle 
luxury  all  that  can  be  spunged  from  the  forced  labor 
of  their  subjects,  but  both  alike  transfer  the  task  of 
spunging  to  a  vizier,  or  an  overseer. 

Thus  freed  from  all  the  cares  of  business,  it  might 
be  imagined  that  the  wealthy  slave-masters  of  the 
south  would  bestow  their  time  and  thoughts  upon  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge,  the  cultivation  of  literature,  and 
the  agreeable  arts.  We  might  suppose  that  they  would 
push  scientific  investigations  to  their  utmost  limits, 
astonish  the  world  with  new  discoveries  in  morals  and 
in  physics,  or  delight  it  with  all  the  graces  of  poetry, 
the  beauties  and  sublimities  of  painting,  sculpture, 
music  and  architecture. 

In  these  expectations  we  are  totally  disappointed. 
Books  are  a  rare  commodity  at  the  south ;  literature 


148  DESPOTISM 

is  uncommon  and  science  still  more  so.  Libraries, 
whether  public  or  private,  are  seldom  to  be  met  with. 
A  few  classics  thumbed  over  at  school,  a  few  novels 
old  or  new,  a  sprinkling  of  political  pamphlets,  and 
some  favorite  newspaper,  form  the  whole  circuit  of 
letters  and  learning,  ordinarily  trodden  by  the  most 
studious  of  the  planters.  The  education  of  the  fe 
males,  even  among  the  wealthiest  classes,  is  still  more 
superficial.  In  this  connection,  it  ought  to  be  remem 
bered,  that  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  priv 
ileged  class  are  totally  destitute  even  of  the  rudiments 
of  learning.  To  read  is  an  accomplishment  they  have 
never  acquired.  Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  persons  so  unfortunately  circumstanced,  can  find 
employment  for  their  leisure  in  literary  pursuits. 

Thus  situated,  with  no  resources  for  the  occupation 
of  their  time,  the  privileged  class  are  constantly  beset 
1  by  a  weariness  of  soul,  perhaps  the  most  distressing 
I  disorder  to  which  men  are  subject.  "Thank  God  I 
am  not  a  negro  !"  said  a  planter  one  day,  as  he  sat 
beneath  the  shade  of  his  porch,  and  watched  his  slaves 
in  a  neighboring  field,  at  work  beneath  a  burning  sun. 
Yet  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  most  miser 
able  of  those  slaves  was  half  as  miserable,  as  their 
unfortunate  master,  who  lived  in  a  lonely  part  of  the 
country,  and  suffered  from  a  forced  idleness  and  soli 
tude,  the  most  poignant  distresses. 

It  is  a  common  remark  among  the  planters  that  the 
slaves  are  happier  than  the  masters.  Many  will  re 
ject  this  idea  with  indignation,  as  a  mere  falsehood, 
invented  to  gloss  over  the  abominations  of  tyranny. 
No  doubt  the  observation  is  generally  urged  with  that 
intent.  But  the  truth  of  a  fact  does  not  depend  upon 
the  use  intended  to  be  made  of  it,  by  those  who  assert 
it.  The  more  closely  a  man  meditates  upon  the  state 
of  things  at  the  south,  the  more  inclined  he  will  be 
to  admit  the  truth  of  the  above  remark  touching  the 
comparative  happiness  of  the  masters  and  the  slaves. 
Instead  however  of  saying  that  the  masters  and  the 
slaves  are  equally  happy,  the  idea  might  be  more 


IN    AMERICA.  149 

A 

clearly  and  distinctly  expressed  by  saying,  that  both  j 
masters  and  slaves  are  equally  miserable.  Slavery  > 
is  an  invention  for  dividing  the  goods  and  ills  of  life 
into  two  separate  parcels,  so  as  to  bestow  all  the  ills 
upon  the  slaves,  and  all  the  good  upon  the  masters. 
So  far  as  regards  the  slaves,  this  attempt  is  successful 
enough.  The  miseries  of  life  are  concentrated  upon 
their  heads  in  a  terrible  mass.  But  as  respects  the 
masters  the  experiment  fails  entirely.  The  coveted 
good,  like  that  manna  which  the  too  greedy  Israel 
ites  sought  wrongfully  to  appropriate,  corrupts,  putre 
fies,  changes  its  nature,  and  turns  into  evil.  Occupa 
tion  too  long  continued  is  destructive  to  happiness,  but 
idleness  is  riot  less  so ;  and  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  the  compulsive  labor  of  the  slaves  is  any  more 
copious  a  source  of  misery  than  the  forced  idleness  of 
the  masters.  I  say  forced  idleness,  for  in  depriving 
themselves  of  the  motives  to  labor  and  exertion,  they 
force  themselves  to  be  idle. 

To  obtain  some  relief  from  the  weariness  that  con 
stantly  besets  them,  the  planters  seek  to  divert  and 
occupy  their  thoughts  by  social  intercourse.  This  is 
the  origin  of  that  hospitality  for  which  the  people  of 
the  south  are  so  famous,  and  which  is  often  brought 
forward  as  a  virtue  ample  enough  to  cover  the  ac 
knowledged  multitude  of  their  sins.  Hospitality,  it  is 
true,  bears  a  certain  relation  to  benevolence ;  but  it  is 
to  benevolence  no  more  than  is  the  flounce  to  the  gar 
ment.  The  attempt  to  conceal  the  nakedness  of  the 
land  by  such  a  rag,  is  as  contemptible  as  it  is  futile. 
In  truth,  the  visitors  who  arrive  at  a  plantation  confer 
a  real  benefit  upon  the  lord  of  it.  They  give  him  oc 
cupation.  The  efforts  necessary  to  entertain,  are  not 
less  agreeable  to  him  who  makes  them,  than  to  those 
for  whom  they  are  made.  If  the  visiter  be  a  total 
stranger  so  much  the  better.  There  is  the  zest  of  nov 
elty  added  to  the  excitement  of  occupation.  If  he 
come  from  a  distant  part  of  the  country,  better  yet. 
He  will  probably  be  able  to  suggest  a  great  many  new 
and  interesting  ideas,  likely  to  give  an  agreeable  mo- 
13* 


150  DESPOTISM 

tion  to  the  stagnant  soul  of  his  host.  Hospitality  has 
ever  been  a  virtue  abundantly  practised  among  all 
idle  and  indolent  races.  The  indian  tribes  of  America, 
are  all  celebrated  for  its  exercise.  The  plundering 
Arabs  of  the  desert  look  upon  it  as  a  religious  duty, — 
for  conscience  and  inclination  are  always  apt  to  pull 
together. 

But  the  exercise  of  this  virtue  among  the  people  of 
the  south,  becomes  the  occasion  of  several  practices  of 
the  most  dangerous  and  deleterious  kind.  It  is  not 
the  cause  of  those  practices,  but  only  the  occasion  for 
them.  In  itself,  it  is  essentially  good,  and  displays 
the  character  of  the  slave-holder  in  the  most  amiable 
light  it  ever  assumes.  Hospitality  is  benevolence  on 
a  small  scale,  and  how  can  benevolence  on  any  other 
scale  be  expected,  from  men  whose  total  existence  is 
a  continued  violation  of  its  clearest  and  most  urgent 
commands  ? 

1.  The  spirit  of  improvidence,   above  described,  as 
one  of  the  evil  results  of  the  slave-holding  system, 
when  it  becomes  associated  with  the  passion  for  hos 
pitality,  is  reenforced  by  two  very  powerful  motives, 
which  give  it  new  impetus ;    first,   the  desire   of  at 
tracting  visiters,  by  the  superior  luxury  and  expen- 
siveness  of  the  entertainment  offered ;  and  second  and 
principally,  the  love  of  superiority,  that  spirit  of  emu- 

t  lation  and  rivalry,  which  leads  each  planter  to  outvie 
his  neighbor  in  the  profusion  of  his  hospitality.  It  is 

\astonishing  what  a  number  of  southern  planters  have 
been  ruined  in  their  pecuniary  affairs  by  the  joint  ope 
ration  of  these  means. 

2.  The  Hospitality  of  the  south,  not  only  stimulates 
\  improvidence,  it  is  the  nursing  mother  of  the  vice  of 

v  DRUNKENNESS,  which  prevails  throughout  the  whole 
country  to  a  frightful  extent.  Dinner  parties  end  too 
often  in  general  intoxication.  What  is  called  the 
Temperance  Reform,  has  made  but  trifling  progress 
in  the  slave-holding  states.  The  obstacles  in  its  way 
are  immense.  To  drink  is  absolutely  necessary  as  a 
means  of  killing  time.  Among  me  lower  orders  of  the 


IN    AMERICA.  151 

privileged  class,  every  social  meeting  ends  in  drunk 
enness.  Attend  an  election,  and  by  the  time  the  polls 
are  closed,  you  will  find  a  great  collection  of  citizens 
at  the  place  of  voting,  all  or  most  of  them,  "  gloriously 
drunk."  Stay  long  enough  and  you  will  see  a  fight, 
[n  Kentucky  such  occasions  are  apt  to  wind  up,  with 
what  is  called  a  free  fight,  that  is,  a  general  and  indis 
criminate  knock-down,  in  which  every  body  present 
is  at  liberty  to  participate.  This  is  the  grand  finale,  or 
concluding  chorus ;  but  before  this  part  of  the  per 
formance  is  reached,  there  are  duets,  trios,  quartets 
and  quintets,  in  all  possible  variety  In  Mississippi 
Tennessee,  and  elsewhere,  laws  have  been  enacted, 
prohibiting  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  in  small 
quantities.  Some  movements  have  also  been  made  in 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  towards  obtaining  the 
passage  of  similar  laws.  Laws  of  this  kind  are  easily 
enacted  in  those  states,  much  more  so  than  at  the 
north,  because  in  those  states,  the  wholesale  trade  in 
liquors  is  almost  entirely  confined  to  a  few  northern 
merchants  and  traders,  who  have  no  political  influ 
ence,  while  the  retail  trade  is  in  the  hands  of  a  set  of 
rr  white  shopkeepers,  rendered  odious  and  infamous 
their  habit  of  secret  traffic  with  the  slaves,  and 
belonging  to  that  inferior  class  of  the  privileged  order, 
which  though  it  exceeds  in  numbers,  is  deprived  for 
the  most  part,  of  any  political  authority.  But  how 
ever  easy  it  may  be  to  enact  such  laws,  it  will  be 
impossible  to  enforce  them,  so  long  as  the  very  legis 
lators  by  whose  votes  they  are  enacted,  are  themselves 
perpetually  in  the  habit  of  excessive  drinking.  These 
laws  will  fall  into  the  same  total  neglect  with  the 
statutes  against  wearing  concealed  weapons  already 
referred  to,  and  those  against  gaming,  to  which  we 
shall  presently  refer. 

3.  But  such  is  the  total  stagnation  of  intellect  and 
sentiment  at  the  south,  that  even  the  stimulus  of  in 
toxicating  liquors  is  not  enough  to  give  life  and  zest 
to  social  intercourse.  There  is  need  of  more  potent 
means.  Necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention.  That  j 
means  is  at  hand.  It  is  GAMING.  v 


152  DESPOTISM 

This  vice,  more  dangerous  and  dreadful,  if  possible, 
even  than  drunkenness  itself,  is  equally  prevalent  at 
the  south.  Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  eradi 
cate  it.  There  are  penal  laws  against  it,  in  all  the 
slave  holding  states.  Of  late,  we  have  seen  the  sum 
mary  process  of  Lynch  Law  applied  to  the  same  pur 
pose.  In  Vicksburgh,  one  of  the  principal  towns  in 
the  state  of  Mississippi,  the  most  respectable  people  of 
the  place  assembled  in  the  month  of  July,  1835,  and 
after  pulling  down  several  buildings  used  as  gambling 
houses,  proceeded  to  seize  the  persons  of  five  profes 
sional  gamblers  and  to  hang  them  on  the  spot,  with 
out  judge  or  jury.  "  These  unfortunate  men,"  says 
the  Louisiana  Advertiser,  "claimed  to  the  last  the 
privilege  of  American  citizens, — the  trial  by  jury, — 
and  professed  themselves  willing  to  submit  to  any 
thing  their  country  would  legally  inflict  upon  them ; 
but  we  are  sorry  to  say,  their  petition  was  in  vain  ! 
The  black  musicians  were  ordered  to  strike  up,  and 
the  voices  of  the  suppliants  were  drowned  by  the  fife 
and  drum.  Mr.  Riddell,  the  cashier  of  the  Planter's 
Bank,  ordered  them  to  play  Yankee  Doodle,  a  tune 
which  we  believe  has  never  been  so  prostituted  before, 
and  which  we  hope,  and  we  trust  will  never  be  again. 
The  unhappy  sufferers  frequently  implored  a  drink  of 
water,  but  were  refused.  $=  *  =fc  =fc  The  wife  of 
one  of  them,  half  distracted  at  the  cruel  treatment 
and  murder  of  her  husband,  trembling  for  her  own 
safety,  in  tears  begged  permission  to  inter  her  hus 
band's  body, — but  in  vain.  She  was  afterwards 
compelled  to  fly,  with  her  orphan  child,  in  an  open 
skiff,  for  her  personal  security.  The  same  fate  was 
threatened  to  any  person  who  should  dare  to  cut  down 
the  bodies  before  the  expiration  of  twenty-four  hours. 
At  eleven  o'clock  the  next  day,  they  were  cut  down 
and  thrown  together  into  a  hole,  which  had  been  dug 
near  the  gallows,  without  coffins  or  any  other  pre 
parations,  except  a  box  into  which  one  of  them  was 
put." 

Of  the  persons  who  assisted  at  this  execution  there 


IN    AMERICA.  153 

was  not  probably  one,  who  was  not  himself  in  the 
constant  habit  of  gambling.  Yet  is  the  horror  of  this 
vice  so  great  in  the  southern  states,  and  its  ill  effects, 
brought  home  to  the  public  mind  by  constant  expe 
rience  are  so  generally  acknowledged,  that  the  actors 
in  this  tragedy  were  never  called  to  account  before 
any  judicial  tribunal,  and  their  conduct,  throughout 
the  entire  south,  was  either  openly  approved,  or  very 
faintly  condemned.  The  tone  of  reprobation  in  which 
the  Louisiana  Advertiser  speaks,  found  but  a  slight 
and  indistinct  echo  from  the  other  southern  prints. 

Yet  notwithstanding  all  the  horror,  with  which  this 
vice  of  gambling  is  regarded,  the  indulgence  in  it,  at 
least  among  the  men,  is  next  to  universal.     Among 
those  who  have  been  swept  away  by  the  prevailing 
current,  may  be  reckoned  some  of  the  most  able  and 
distinguished  of  our  southern  and  south-western  ora 
tors  and  politicians,  unable  to  withstand  this   any 
more  than  other  popular  sins.     When  such  men  lead, 
followers  are  always  plenty.     Every  little  village  of 
the  south  has  its  race-course,  its  billiard  room,  its 
faro  table,  and  its  gambling  house,  and  of  the  three 
latter,  perhaps  several.     This  grows  out  of  the  moral 
necessity  of  things.     Men,  in  all  ages,  and  in  every 
country,  who  have  had  much  leisure  on  their  hands, 
which  they  knew  not  how  else  to  empk>y,  have  ever 
sought  relief  in  some  sort  of(gambling.)   It  is  so  al 
ways  with  savages,  sailors  and  soldiers,  and  so  it  is 
with  the  idle  population  of  the  south.     The   habit 
once  acquired,  it  becomes  almost  impossible  to  resist 
its  seductions.     To  reform  a   gambler  is  much   the 
same  difficult  task  as  to  reform  a   drunkard.     The 
planter  who  has  been  secluded  upon  his  estate  for  a 
week  or  a  month,  in  irksome  and  wretched  indolence, 
his  heart  all  the  time  devouring  itself,  orders  his  horse 
or  his  carriage  in  a  fit  of  desperation,  and  sets  out  for 
the  nearest  village.     The  gaming  table  offers  him  the 
speediest  and  most  certain  means  of  excitement,  the 
surest  method  of  shaking  off  the  listless  misery  which 
oppresses  him.     To   the   gaming  table   he  goes.     It 


154  DESPOTISM 

stands  always  ready, — for  the  necessity  of  the  case  has 
created  a  peculiar  class  of  men  at  the  south,  who  are 
gamblers  by  profession.  It  was  to  this  class  that  those 
men  belonged  who  were  hanged  at  Vicksburg.  This 
is  a  profession  which  has  sprung  up  naturally  at  the 
south,  and  as  has  been  said  necessarily,  and  which 
can  boast  of  more  talent  and  accomplishment  among 
its  members,  than  the  three  learned  professions  of  law, 
physic  and  divinity  united. 

The  institution  of  slavery  deprives  a  large  portion  of 
the  people  of  their  natural  occupation.  But  as  man  is 
essentially  an  active  animal,  to  supply  this  deficiency 
it  is  necessary  to  create  artificial  occupations.  Gam 
bling  is  the  employment,  which  under  similar  circum 
stances,  has  ever  presented  itself  to  men,  as  a  means 
of  killing  time.  In  order  that  this  employment  may 
be  indulged  in,  whenever  the  want  of  it  is  felt,  it  is 
necessary  that  a  peculiar  class  should  exist,  as  it  were, 
the  priesthood  of  the  gaming  table,  always  ready  at 
all  times,  to  gamble  with  all  comers.  These  are  the 
professional  gamblers.  They  practise  gaming  not  for 
amusement,  but  as  a  livelihood.  If  they  left  every 
thing  to  chance  and  strictly  observed  the  laws  of  play, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  live  by  their  busi 
ness,  because,  in  the  long  run,  they  would  be  certain  to 
lose  as  much  as  they  won,  and  so  could  have  nothing 
left  whereupon  to  live.  Hence  they  are  compelled 
to  play  false.  They  must  cheat,  or  starve.  They  are 
not  merely  gamblers,  but  swindlers.  This  explains 
the  odium  attached  to  their  occupation.  Merely  to 
gamble  is  no  imputation  upon  any  body's  character 
in  the  southern  states,  or  at  most  it  is  an  imputation 
of  which  nobody  is  ashamed.  To  be  a  gambler  by 
profession  is  infamous,  because  it  is  well  understood, 
that  every  professional  gambler  is  a  cheat. 

But  though  the  profession  is  infamous,  still  it  is 
crowded.  Its  members  throng  the  steam-boats,  the 
hotels,  the  cities,  and  the  villages  of  the  south,  and 
among  them  may  be  found,  the  most  gentlemanly, 
agreeable,  insinuating,  talented,  well  informed  men  of 


IN    AMERICA.  155 

the  whole  population,  constantly  on  the  watch,  and 
always  laboring  to  attract,  to  allure,  to  please,  many 
of  them  attain  a  peculiar  polish  and  elegance  of  man 
ners.  New  recruits  are  always  crowding  in.  The 
planter  who  has  ruined  himself  by  improvidence,  dis 
sipation  or  losses  at  the  gaming  table,  the  young  dis 
appointed  heir,  bred  up  in  indolence  and  luxury  by  a 
father  who  dies  insolvent, — these  persons  find  scarcely 
any  other  way  of  gaining  their  daily  bread,  except  to 
adopt  gambling  as  a  profession.  There  is  no  other 
business  for  which  they  are  qualified,  there  is  no  other 
art,  which  they  understand.  It  seems  hard  to  hold 
these  individuals  strictly  responsible  for  the  evil  they 
do.  You  cannot  expect  them  to  starve.  They  are 
the  victims  of  a  social  system  intolerably  bad. 

The  professional  gamblers  are  above  described  such 
as  they  are,  when  at  the  head  of  their  profession,  and 
in  the  heyday  of  success.  In  general,  they  soon  begin 
to  go  down  hill.  Proverbially  improvident,  they  are 
abundantly  supplied  with  money,  or  wholly  without  it. 
The  latter  presently  comes  to  be  their  habitual  condi 
tion.  Their  fate  closely  resembles  that  of  prostitutes  in 
a  great  city.  Drunkenness  relieves  their  distresses  for 
the  moment,  but  by  destroying  their  health  and  their 
intellect,  soon  precipitates  them  into  lower  depths  of 
misery.  They  become  at  last  a  burden  upon  relatives 
and  friends ;  find  in  an  early  death  a  refuge  from  de 
spair;  or  are  precipitated  into  crimes  which  carry 
them  to  the  penitentiary  or  the  gallows. 

The  vice  of  gambling  is  not  confined  to  the  supe 
rior  portion  of  the  privileged  order.  It  pervades  the 
lower  class  also.  There  are  blacklegs  and  gambling 
houses  adapted  to  the  taste  and  manners  of  all. 

To  the  business  of  gambling,  the  professional  gam 
blers  from  time  to  time,  add  several  other  occupations. 
They  become  passers  of  counterfeit  money,  horse- 
thieves,  and  negro-stealers.  Nothing  except  the  ex 
treme  poverty  of  the  country,  prevents  them  from 
organizing  an  extensive  system  of  plunder.  Horses 
and  slaves  are  almost  the  only  thing,  capable  of  trans- 


156  DESPOTISM 

portation,  which  can  be  stolen.  In  general,  to  pick 
the  pockets  of  the  planters  by  the  help  of  a  faro  table 
or  a  pack  of  cards,  is  not  only  a  safe,  but  a  surer 
operation  than  to  attempt  it  in  any  other  way. 

Party  politics,  state  and  national,  afford  the  only 
topic,  to  any  extent  of  an  intellectual  character,  in 
which  any  considerable  number  of  the  southern  pop 
ulation,  take  any  deep  interest,  or  which  serves  to  any 
considerable  extent,  to  dispel  the  fog  of  wearisome 
idleness,  by  which  they  are  constantly  threatened  to 
be  enveloped.  Politics  at  the  south,  are  rather  specu 
lative  than  practical.  Every  slave-holding  commu 
nity  is  essentially  conservative,  and  opposed  to  all 
change.  The  southern  politicians  puzzle  and  lose 
themselves  in  vain  attempts  to  reconcile  the  metaphy 
sical  system  of  liberty  acknowledged  by  their  own 
state  constitutions,  with  the  actual  system  of  despo 
tism  amid  which  they  live.  Their  ablest  reasoners, 
can  boast  no  more  than  to  be  subtle  logicians,  and  in 
genious  sophists.  Statesmanship  is  a  thing  they  have 
no  idea  of.  Yet  the  study  of  politics,  barren,  empty 
and  profitless  as  southern  politics  are,  has  saved 
many  of  the  finest  minds  at  the  south  from  a  total 
/stagnation,  and  affords  to  great  numbers  a  stimulant 
v  altogether  more  harmless  than  gambling  and  strong 
drink.  Great  numbers  of  the  southern  planters  are  as 
great  adepts  in  political  metaphysics,  as  the  Scotch 
peasantry  are  or  were,  in  calviriistic  divinity.  Grant 
their  premises, — which  for  the  most  part  are  utterly 
false, — and  they  reason  like  a  book. 

There  have  been  enumerated  above,  five  capital  de 
fects  in  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  privileged 
class  at  the  south,  viz :  ferocity  of  temper,  improvi 
dence,  idleness,  drunkenness,  and  gambling.  It  is  but 
justice  to  say,  that  the  female  portion  of  the  privileg 
ed  class  are  in  general  entirely  free  from  the  two  last 
mentioned  faults,  nor  does  ferocity  of  temper  exhibit 
itself  among  them,  to  any  thing  the  same  extent 
as  in  the  male  sex.  Idleness  and  improvidence  are 
their  greatest  and  most  striking  defects. 


IN  AMERICA.  157 

Among  the  men  however,  the  whole  five  are  palpa 
ble,  obvious,  undeniable.  As  to  this  matter  there  can 
not  be  any  dispute.  It  must  be  confessed,  however 
unwillingly  that  these  faults  are  characteristic  of  the 
southern  people.  It  has  been  shown  how  they  are  all 
aggravated,  and  rendered  incurable,  by  the  existence 
of  slavery.  Any  attempt  to  remove  or  palliate  them, 
while  that  cause  of  aggravation  remains,  can  have 
only  a  partial  and  limited  success.  It  is  impossible  to 
make  men  virtuous  or  happy  unless  by  giving  them 
some  steady  employment  that  shall  innocently  engage 
their  attention,  and  pleasantly  occupy  their  time.  The 
most  essential  step  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  is, 
to  render  useful  industry,  respectable.  But  this  step 
can  never  be  taken,  so  long  as  labor  remains  the  badge 
of  a  servile  condition. 


SECTION  II. 

Personal  effects  of  slavery  upon  the  members  of  the 
unprivileged  class. 

Extremes  meet.  The  truth  of  this  proposition,  in  a 
physical  point  of  view  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
every  motion  upon  the  earth's  surface  describes  an 
elliptical  curve.  Experience  would  seem  to  show  that 
this  proposition  is  almost  as  true  in  morals  as  in  phy 
sics.  At  all  events  it  is  a  curious  fact,  that  the  exist 
ence  of  slavery  in  a  community,  instead  of  producing 
such  diversities  as  might  be  supposed,  does  in  fact,  in 
many  very  important  particulars,  operate  almost  ex 
actly  alike  upon  the  masters  and  the  slaves.  Fero 
city  of  temper,  idleness,  improvidence,  drunkenness, 
gambling — these  are  vices  for  which  the  masters  are 
distinguished,  and  these  same  vices  are  conspicuous 
traits  in  the  character  and  conduct  of  slaves. 
14 


158  DESPOTISM 

/ 

1.  Ferocity  of  Temper.  The  first  access  of  suf 
fering  softens  the  heart,  the  long  continuance  of  suffer 
ing  tends  to  harden  it.  Suffering  when  long  continu 
ed,  begins  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  thing  of  course.  He 
who  constantly  fears  to  feel  the  whip  upon  his  own 
shoulders,  ceases  to  weep  because  it  falls  upon  another. 
Those  who  are  accustomed  to  see  authority  exercised 
1  almost  solely  in  the  infliction  of  pain,  form  present 
ly  a  close  association  between  the  two  things.  They 
seem  to  be  inseparable,  and  a  liberal  use  of  violent 
means  comes  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  only  method  of 
showing  one's  power.  Now  the  love  of  power,  or  to 
speak  more  correctly,  that  love  of  superiority,  which 
the  exercise  of  power  is  a  means  of  gratifying,  is  one 
of  the  native,  and  one  of  the  strongest  impulses  of  the 
human  heart.  The  slave  feels  it  like  other  men. 
He  indulges  it,  when,  where,  and  as,  he  can,  upon  his 
wife,  his  children  and  the  horse  he  drives,  or  upon 
such  of  his  companions  as  superior  strength,  or  the 
appointment  of  his  master  has  submitted  to  his  con 
trol.  He  exercises  his  authority  in  the  same  way  in 
which  authority  has  been  exercised  over  him.  In  this 
as  in  many  other  respects,  he  closely  copies  the  exam 
ple  of  his  master. 

Let  it  be  recollected  also  that  ferocity  of  temper  is  a 
peculiar  trait  of  a  savage  or  barbarous  state  of  society. 
In  civilized  countries,  it  is  principally  to  be  seen 
among  the  most  ignorant  and  least  refined.  Civiliza 
tion  is  perhaps  more  remarkable  for  its  effect  in  soft 
ening  the  tempers  of  men  than  for  any  other  single 
thing.  Slaves  are  purposely  kept  in  a  state  of  barbar 
ism  and  ignorance.  That  they  should  have  little  con 
trol  over  their  tempers,  and  should  give  way  to  vio 
lent  and  sudden  gusts  of  passion,  is  a  matter  of  course. 
J  2.  Improvidence.  Among  freemen,  the  pleasures 
of  accumulation  are  perhaps  not  inferior  to  the  pleas 
ures  of  consumption.  The  pleasure  that  a  house  keep 
er  enjoys  from  knowing  that  he  has  laid  by  a  stock  of 
provisions  sufficient  to  support  his  family  through  the 
winter,  is  sufficient  to  counterbalance  a  great  deal  of 


IN   AMERICA.  159 

saving  and  self-denial.  But  the  pleasures  of  accumu 
lation  are  pleasures  which  a  slave  cannot  enjoy.  His 
sole  pleasure  consists  in  consuming.  It  is  therefore 
his  object  to  consume  all  he  possibly  can.  To  gratify 
a  present  appetite  is  almost  all  he  ever  thinks  of.  He 
knows  that  his  master  will  not  suffer  hirn  to  perish  for 
want  of  absolute  necessaries.  Any  thing  he  should 
lay  by,  he  would  be  in  constant  danger  of  losing,  be 
cause  property  is  a  thing  which  the  laws  do  not  allow 
him  to  possess.  When  he  has  consumed  a  thing  he  is 
sure  of  it,  and  only  then — 

Be  fair  or  foul,  or  rain  or  shine 

The  joys  I  have  possessed  in  spite  of  fate  are  mine, 

Nor  heaven  itself  upon  the  past  has  power, 

But  what  has  been,  has  been,  and  I  have  had  my  hour. 

The  slaves  never  read  either  Horace  or  Dryden, 
but  they  feel  and  they  reason  in  the  same  way. 

The  spirit  of  improvidence  has  for  its  associate  on 
the  part  of  the  slaves  as  well  as  on  the  part  of  the 
masters,  a  remarkable  disposition  for  hospitality.  But 
the  hospitality  of  the  slaves  may  justly  be  regarded 
as  a  virtue  of  a  much  higher  order,  than  the  hospi 
tality  of  the  masters,  inasmuch  as  the  slaves  bestow 
out  of  their  necessities,  whereas  the  masters  in  gener 
al,  give  from  their  abundance.  Sunday  for  the  most 
part  is  allowance  day,  and  on  those  plantations  where 
meat  forms  a  part  of  the  allowance,  it  often  happens, 
where  the  vigilance  of  masters  or  overseers  does  not 
prevent  it,  that  within  six  hours,  the  portion  of  meat 
given  out  for  the  whole  week,  is  consumed  in  treating 
friends  and  acquaintances  from  some  neighboring 
plantations,  where  meat  is  a  luxury  that  forms  no  por 
tion  of  the  regular  allowance.  The  slaves  are  as  fond 
of  nocturnal  entertainments  as  the  masters  are  of  din 
ner  parties,  and  the  profuse  liberality  with  which, 
from  the  scanty  means  within  their  power,  they  con 
tribute  to  get  them  up,  shows  them  in  point  of  good 
fellowship,  to  be  not  less  free  hearted  than  their  mas 
ters. 


160  DESPOTISM 

3.  Idleness.  The  natural  stimulus  of  labor  is,  the 
hope  of  reward.  The  expectation  of  reward  is  capa 
ble  of  exciting  the  most  strenuous  exertions,  and  when 
properly  presented,  never  fails  of  effect.  Where  this 
motive  does  not  exist,  industry  is  unknown.  The 
fear  of  punishment  cannot  produce  it.  The  most  it 
can  do  is,  to  produce  an  empty  appearance  of  it, 
which  is  in  fact  little  better  than  idleness  in  the  dis 
guise  of  labor. 

But  it  is  not  alone  the  absence  of  reward  that  makes 
a  slave  necessarily  idle.  In  his  mind  labor  is  asso 
ciated  indissolubly  with  the  lash.  Pain,  weariness, 
fear,  the  sense  of  inferiority,  these  are  in  his  eyes, 
the  natural  companions  of  labor.  What  wonder  if  he 
regard  it  with  disgust?  On  the  other  hand,  idleness, 
to  his  limited  view,  appears  to  be  the  distinguishing 
badge  of  freedom,  and  with  freedom  he  associates  every 
j[dea  of  pleasure  and  content. 

Idleness  again,  in  point  of  fact,  is  in  the  case  of  a 
slave  a  real  luxury,  a  true  delight,  much  more  so, 
than  it  ever  can  be  in  the  case  of  a  freeman,  and  that 
for  three  reasons.  First,  because  rest  is  ever  delightful 
to  the  weary,  and  those  who  labor  by  compulsion  are 
always  weary.  Second,  because  being  idle,  as  has 
been  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  is  a  sort  of  means 
whereby  the  slave  is  enabled  to  regain,  as  it  were,  a 
certain  portion  of  his  liberty.  Third,  because  idle 
ness  is  a  means  of  lessening  the  value  of  that  stolen 
labor  upon  which  the  master  has  seized,  and  so  of  in 
dulging  that  indignation  and  hatred  which  the  slave 
naturally  feels.  Do  we  not  commonly  destroy  our 
property,  whether  public  or  private,  whenever  that  is 
the  only  way  to  save  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of 
an  enemy  ? 

To  make  men  industrious,  who  have  all  these  mo 
tives  for  idleness,  is  out  of  the  question.  The  experi 
ence  of  the  world  has  proved  ten  thousand  times  over, 
and  every  individual  who  will  but  consider  his  own 
motives  of  action,  must  be  abundantly,  satisfied,  that 
the  only  stimulus  that  can  be  relied  upon  as  able  to 


IN   AMERICA.  161 

produce  a  life  of  regular  industry  is, — the  hope  of  re 
ward, — a  fair  prospect  of  being  permitted  to  enjoy  un 
disturbed,  the  fruits  of  our  labor, 

4.  Drunkenness.     The  excitement  which   drunk 
enness  produces  is  of  so  very  pleasurable  a  kind,  that 
those  who  have  once  experienced  it,  have  need  of  very 
strong  motives  to  enable  them   to  resist   the  temptation 
it  holds  out.    Especially  is  this  the  case  with  those  who 
lack   that  steady,  regular  yet  innocent  stimulus  sup 
plied  by  a  daily  occupation  in  which  they  take  pleasure. 
When  occupation  is  wanting,  or  when  instead  of  be 
ing  pleasurable  the  occupation  to  which    a   man  is 
obliged  to  submit,  is   irksome  and  disagreeable,  there 
results  a  miserable  weariness  of  soul,   against  which 
drunkenness  offers  an  opiate  so  tempting  that  even 
the  most  intelligent  and  best  educated  are  not  always 
able  to  resist  it.      That  the  slaves  as  a  body  should 
greedily  snatch  at  it,  is  not  surprising. 

5.  Gambling.     That   same   wearisome    state   of 
mind,  which  among  both  bond  and  free  is  the  greatest 
temptation  to  drink,  proves  also  the  strongest  induce 
ment  to  gamble.     The  human  mind  craves  excite 
ment.     It  is  the  very  vital  air  of  the  soul,  as  essential 
to  it  as  motion  is  to  the  health  of  the  body.     If  this 
desire  cannot  be  gratified  by  innocent  means,  means 
of  gratification  will  be  devised  which  are  not  inno 
cent.     Of  these  means  gambling  is  one  of  the  most  po 
tent  and  pernicious ;  and  a  means  as  popular  among  the 
slaves  as  among  the  masters.     It  ought  to  be  observ 
ed  however  with  respect  both  to  this  vice  and  to  that 
of  drunkenness,  that  both  of  them  prevail  to  a  much 
less  extent  among  the  slaves  than  with  the  free,  be 
cause  the  opportunities,  means,  and  facility  for  these 
kinds  of  indulgences  which  the  slaves  possess,  are  far 
inferior  to  those  possessed  by  the  free. 

It  is  proper  also  to  observe  that  the  five  great  de 
fects  of  character  and  conduct  common  as  we  have 
seen  to  the  privileged  and  the  unprivileged  classes 
at  the  south,  all  exhibit  themselves  among  the  free, 
in  a  form  more  aggravated,  and  more  disgusting — 


162  DESPOTISM 

at  all  events  in  a  form  far  more  pregnant  with  mis 
chief  than  among  the  slaves.  Slavery  it  would  seem 
is  but  the  foster-mother  of  vice ;  tyranny  is  the  real 
parent, — for  the  privileged  class  at  the  south  have 
not  yet  reached  that  point  of  refinement  indicated  by 
Burke,  at  which  vice  by  losing  all  its  grossness  loses 
half  its  evil. 

The  ferocity  of  the  slaves  is  a  mild  thing  compared 
with  the  ferocity  of  the  masters.  It  is  rare  to  hear  of  a 
slave  murdered  by  a  slave,  while  the  murder  of  white 
men  by  white  men,  is  an  every  day  occurrence. 
The  instrument  of  vengeance  which  the  slave  most 
commonly  employs,  is  his  list,  or  at  most  a  club.  The 
master  uses  pistols,  dirks,  knives,  and  double  barrel 
led  guns.  With  all  the  bad  reputation  of  Spain  and 
Italy;  assassinations  were  never  a  quarter  so  common 
in  those  countries  as  they  now  are  in  the  south-western 
states  of  the  American  Union.  The  chance  or  rather 
I  might  say,  the  probability  of  dying  a  violent  death 
seems  to  be  far  greater  in  the  states  of  Mississippi, 
Arkansas  and  Texas,  than  in  any  other  part  of  the 
known  world,  not  even  the  most  barbarous  countries 
excepted. 

Idleness  we  must  consider,  presents  itself  to  the 
slaves  under  the  aspect  of  a  pure  good.  In  them  it 
cannot  be  regarded  as  a  vice.  Is  it  a  crime  to  evade 
as  far  as  possible,  the  violence  of  robbery  ? 

The  privileged  class  on  the  contrary,  are  able  to 
view  idleness  in  its  true  light.  It  is  not  only  the 
cause,  and  to  the  privileged  class  perceptibly  the 
cause  of  all  those  evils  traced  to  it  above,  but  the  love 
of  idleness  is  in  fact,  the  real  foundation  of  slavery. 
The  masters  wish  to  enjoy  without  working  ;  to  reap 
where  they  have  not  sowed,  to  gather  where  they 
have  not  strawed.  This  is  the  whole  secret  of  the 
social  system  of  the  south.  This  unjust  desire,  which 
in  the  nature  of  things  never  can  be  fully  gratified — 
for  the  enjoyment  thus  obtained  is  poisoned  and  cor 
rupted  by  a  certain  secret  inherent  flavor  of  bitter 
ness — 


IN    AMERICA,  163 

— Medio  de  fonte  leporum, 
Surgit  amari  aliquid,  quod  in  ipsis  floribus  angat, — 

this  unjust  desire  to  possess  without  labor,  may  be 
looked  upon  as  the  fruitful  source  of  all  the  evils  which 
the  system  of  slavery  involves.  Under  such  circum 
stances,  idleness  ceases  to  be  merely  a  vice,  it  becomes 
a  crime,  and  a  crime  too  of  the  very  blackest  die ;  for 
it  is  the  immediate  cause  of  all  kinds  of  crimes  which 
men  have  agreed  most  to  stigmatize,  and  those  crimes 
too  not  perpetrated  one  by  one,  arid  in  defiance  of  law, 
but  perpetrated  wholesale  and  systematically,  not  by 
individual  upon  individual,  but  by  one  half  the  com 
munity  upon  the  other  half,  and  that  too  with  the 
sanction  of  legislatures  and  tribunals. 

As  regards  improvidence,  drunkenness  and  gam 
bling,  on  the  part  of  the  slaves  they  are  comparatively 
venal  offences.  The  harm  they  can  do  is  limited,  and 
is  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  person  of  the  offen 
der  himself.  There  is  no  danger  that  by  giving  way 
to  them,  he  will  precipitate  a  whole  family  into  pov 
erty  and  distress.  There  is  no  danger  that  his  ex 
ample  will  have  a  pernicious  influence  upon  society 
at  large.  What  is  the  example  of  a  slave?  Nor  is 
there  any  likelihood  that  by  giving  way  to  these 
temptations  he  may  render  useless  gifts  which  prop 
erly  exercised  might  have  redounded  to  the  benefit  of 
the  community.  The  only  talent  proper  to  a  slave  is  the 
talent  of  handling  a  hoe.  With  him,  these  vices  ter 
minate  for  the  most  part  in  themselves.  The  seconda 
ry  evils  which  they  produce  are  comparatively  speak 
ing,  inconsiderable.  Among  the  privileged  class  these 
indulgences  give  rise  to  a  train  of  secondary  evils  of 
which  the  mere  catalogue  would  fill  a  volume  ;  evils, 
which  instead  of  confining  themselves  to  the  person 
of  the  offender,  overflow,  spread  abroad,  sweep  away 
whole  families,  and  inundate  society.  No  language 
is  too  strong  to  describe  the  dangerous  and  fatal  char 
acter,  which  when  practised  by  the  privileged  class, 
these  vices  assume. 


164  DESPOTISM 


SECTION  III. 

Points  of  diversity  in  the  character  of  the  privileged 
and  the  unprivileged  classes. 

1.  COURAGE  is  one  of  those  chivalrous  virtues  much 
boasted  of  among  the  freemen  of  the  south.  They 
are  brave  beyond  question.  All  freemen  are  so. 
Courage  is  a  virtue  which  always  exists  in  the  great 
est  perfection  among  freemen,  because  among  freemen, 
it  is  most  esteemed  and  most  cultivated.  Courage  is 
essential  to  the  maintenance  of  liberty.  When  it 
happens  that  freemen  are  also  tyrants,  courage  is  cul 
tivated  and  fostered  for  the  additional  reason  that  it 
is  essential  also  to  the  maintenance  of  tyranny. 
What  importance  is  attached  to  this  virtue  at  the  south, 
may  be  conjectured  from  the  braggadocio  spirit,  which 
so  universally  prevails  there.  Listen  to  southern 
conversation,  or  read  the  southern  newspapers,  and 
one  would  suppose  that  every  mother's  son  of  the  free 
population,  was  an  Orlando  Furioso,  or  a  Richard 
C<zur  de  Lion  at  the  least.  What  wonder  if  courage 
abound  where  it  is  so  highly  esteemed  and  so  greatly 
encouraged. 

The  slaves,  on  the  other  hand,  are  cowards.  A  brave 
man  may  be  found  among  them  here  or  there,  but 
cowardice  is  their  general  characteristic.  If  it  were 
not  so,  the  system  of  slavery  would  be  very  short  liv 
ed.  To  organize  a  successful  insurrection,  something 
more  than  mere  courage  is  no  doubt  necessary.  But 
courage  alone  is  sufficient  to  produce  a  series  of  un 
successful  insurrections,  and  however  individually  un 
successful  ;  a  series  of  insurrections  would  shortly  ren 
der  the  masters'  empire  not  worth  preserving.  If  the 
slaves  are  cowards,  it  is  a  vice  to  which  they  have 
been  diligently  trained  up  from  their  earliest  childhood. 
Were  a  tenth  part  of  the  pains  bestowed  to  make 
them  brave,  which  are  taken  to  render  them  otherwise, 
they  would  be  as  courageous  as  their  masters.  The 


IN    AMERICA.  165 

boldest  heart  very  soon  becomes  subdued,  when  every 
indication  of  spirit,  every  disposition  to  stand  at  bay 
is  shortly  visited  by  the  whip,  irons,  or  a  prison. 

2.  The  CHASTITY  of  their  women  is  another  chivalrous 
virtue,  much  boasted  of  by  the  freemen  of  the  south. 
The  southern  people  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  their 
women.  From  the  most  disgusting  vices  of  the  men, 
they  are,  as  we  have  mentioned  already,  in  a  great 
measure  free,  and  such  active  virtue  as  is  to  be  found 
at  the  south,  at  least  the  larger  portion  of  it,  is  to  be 
looked  for  among  the  female  sex. 

If  however  the  women  have  escaped  to  a  certain  ex 
tent,  the  blighting  influences  of  tyranny  it  is  because 
they  are  sedulously  shielded  from  its  worst  effects. 

Chastity  like  courage  is  to  a  great  extent,  an  artifi 
cial  virtue,  the  existence  of  which  principally  depends 
upon  education  and  public  opinion.  Both  education 
and  public  opinion  are  stretched  to  their  utmost  influ 
ence  to  preserve  the  chastity  of  the  southern  women, 
while  the  free  and  more  luxurious  indulgence  which 
ihe  men  find  elsewhere,  causes  the  seduction  of  free 
women  to  be  a  thing  seldom  attempted. 

Among  the  slaves,  a  woman,  apart  from  mere  natu 
ral  bashfulness,  has  no  inducement  to  be  chaste  ;  she 
has  many  inducements  the  other  way.  Her  person 
is  her  only  means  of  purchasing  favors,  indulgences, 
presents.  To  be  the  favorite  of  the  master  or  one  of 
his  sons,  of  the  overseer,  or  even  of  a  driver,  is  an  ob 
ject  of  desire,  and  a  situation  of  dignity.  It  is  as  much 
esteemed  among  the  slaves,  as  an  advantageous  mar 
riage  would  be,  among  the  free.  So  far  from  involv 
ing  disgrace,  it  confers  honor.  Besides,  where  mar 
riage  is  only  a  temporary  contract,  dissolvable  at  any 
time,  not  by  the  will  of  the  parties  alone,  but  at  the 
caprice  and  pleasure  of  the  masters,  what  room  is 
there  for  any  such  virtue  as  chastity  ?  Chastity  con 
sists  in  keeping  the  sexual  appetite  under  a  close  re 
straint  except  when  its  indulgence  is  sanctioned  by 
marriage.  But  among  slaves  every  casual  union, 
though  but  for  a  day,  is  a  marriage.  To  persons  so 


166  DESPOTISM 

situated,  we  cannot  justly  apply  ideas  founded  upon 
totally  different  circumstances.  If  we  choose  how 
ever  to  understand  by  chastity  the  restriction  of  one's 
self  to  a  single  partner,  chastity  is  very  far  from  being 
so  rare  a  virtue  among  the  women  of  the  unprivileg 
ed  class  as  is  often  asserted,  and  generally  supposed. 
Though  the  union  may  be  dissolved  in  a  moment, 
at  the  slightest  caprice  of  the  parties,  sach  separations 
are  much  more  rare  than  might  be  imagined.  More 
husbands  and  wives  among  the  slaves  are  separated 
by  the  hammer  of  the  auctioneer,  than  by  the  united 
influence  of  infidelity,  disgust,  or  the  desire  of  change. 

3.  FRAUD,  FALSEHOOD.  AND  DISHONESTY  are  represent 
ed  by  the  masters,  as  distinguishing  traits  in  the  cha 
racter  of  the  unprivileged  class.  This  charge  is  un- 
founded.  It  has  been  shown  already,  that  as  between 
master  and  slave,  from  the  very  nature  of  that  rela 
tion,  mutual  confidence,  trust  and  reliance,  are  out  of 
the  question.  To  deceive  his  master  is  almost  the 
only  means  of  self-defence  in  the  power  of  the  slave. 
What  ground  of  mutual  confidence  is  it  possible  to  es 
tablish  between  the  robber  and  the  robbed  ?  To  hold 
those  promises  binding  which  are  extorted  by  force, 
to  maintain  that  one  is  obliged  to  keep  faith  with  a 
plunderer,  is  to  surrender  up,  to  the  hands  of  violence, 
through  the  influence  of  a  weak  and  cruel  superstition, 
or  a  piece  of  miserable  and  empty  sophistry,  not  the 
body  only,  but  the  soul ;  not  only  actions,  but  the  will ; 
the  future  as  well  as  the  present ; — it  is  to  strip  weak 
ness  and  suffering  of  their  last  defence,  and  to  give 
omnipotence  to  tyranny. 

In  their  transactions  with  each  other  the  members 
of  the  unprivileged  class  at  the  south,  are  by  no  means 
deficient  in  the  great  and  necessary  virtues  of  truth, 
honesty  and  fidelity.  The  difficulty  of  inducing  them 
to  betray  each  other  is  proverbial,  and  is  a  matter 
of  grievous  complaint  among  masters  and  overseers. 
There  are  amon'g  the  slaves,  as  among  all  bodies  of 
men,  some  who  set  up  honesty  for  sale,  and  who  be 
come  instruments  of  tyranny  in  the  hands  of  the  pri- 


IN    AMERICA.  167 

vileged  class.  There  are  others  shrewd  and  slippery, 
upon  whom  no  dependence  whatever  can  be  placed, 
even  by  their  friends  and  relations.  Characters  of  this 
sort,  are  quite  as  common  among  the  privileged  order. 
Indeed  more  so.  There  has  been  already  mentioned 
that  great  class  of  professional  gamblers,  whose  sole 
business  it  is  to  prey  upon  the  community,  to  inveigle 
the  unwary,  and  entrap  the  ignorant.  There  is  no 
such  class  among  the  slaves.  There  is  still  another 
great  class  among  the  privileged  order,  who  live  al 
most  wholly  upon  the  plunder  of  their  richer  neigh 
bors,  the  receivers,  namely,  of  stolen  goods,  the  keep 
ers  of  the  petty  trading  stores,  scattered  throughout 
the  south.  They  take  in  the  com,  cotton  and  rice 
stolen  by  the  slaves,  and  give  in  exchange  whisky 
and  other  luxuries.  This  class  of  traders  is  very 
large.  The  severest  laws  have  been  enacted  to 
suppress  them,  but  without  success.  Lynch  law  is 
now  and  then  administered  upon  them  in  all  its  sever 
ity,  but  the  nuisance  cannot  be  abated.  These  men, 
compared  with  the  slaves,  are  wholly  \vithout  excuse. 
They  live  by  constant  violations  of  laws,  by  constant 
breaches  of  a  social  compact  to  which  they  have  them 
selves  assented.  This  is  a  case  in  which  the  receiver, 
even  in  a  legal  point  of  view,  is  a  thousand  times 
worse  than  the  thief.  Yet  to  speak  within  bounds, 
for  every  five  or  six  acts  of  theft,  (or  what  is  called 
so,)  committed  on  the  part  of  slaves,  there  is  at  least 
one  act  of  reception  committed  on  the  part  of  some 
freeman.  We  may  therefore  consider  it  to  be  reduced 
to  an  arithmetical  demonstration,  that  so  far  as  relates 
to  violations  of  property,  the  offences  of  the  free  are 
greater  than  those  of  the  slaves.  To  this  conclusion 
we  must  come,  even  without  taking  into  account  the 
appalling  fact  that  the  entire  existence  of  a  large  part 
of  the  privileged  class  is  but  one  constant,  steady  vio 
lation  of  all  those  principles  upon  which  the  very  idea 
of  property  depends,  and  upon  which  the  virtues  of 
truth,  honesty,  justice  and  fidelity  must  rest  for  their 
only  sure  support.  We  may  apply  to  the  southern 


168  DESPOTISM    IN    AMERICA. 

slave-holders,  a.jeu  $  esprit  of  Talleyrand's.  A  certain 
person  was  complaining  that  every  body  consider 
ed  him  a  worthless,  infamous  fellow,  yet  said  the 
complainant,  I  do  not  know  why,  for  I  have  never 
committed  but  one  fault  in  my  life.  "  Ah !"  said 
Talleyrand,  "  but  when  will  that  one  fault  be  end 
ed?" 

To  those  accustomed  to  look  only  at  the  outside  of 
things,  the  results  to  which  this  chapter  has  brought 
us,  will  no  doubt  seem  strange.  It  is  impossible,  they 
will  say,  that  men  whose  circumstances  are  so  contra 
dictory,  and  whose  whole  appearance  is  so  different, 
can  after  all,  be  so  much  alike.  Such  readers  will  do 
well  to  call  to  mind  the  lines  of  Shakspeare, — 

Through  tatter'd  clothes  small  vices  do  appear  ; 
Robes  and  furr'd  gowns,  hide  all.    Plate  sin  with  gold, 
And  the  strong  lance  of  justice  hurtless  breaks 
Arm  it  in  rags,  a  pigmy's  straw  doth  pierce  it. 

That  gold  however,  with  which  the  system  of  south 
ern  slavery  is  plated,  is  not  the  true  metal.  5Tis  but  a 
fairy,  shadowy,  imaginary  gold  which  cannot  cross  the 
running  waters  of  truth,  without  being  changed  back 
again  to  its  original  worthlessness. 


CHAPTER    FIFTH. 

LEGAL    BASIS    OF    THE    SLAVE-HOLDING    SYSTEM. 

,.,  j 

SECTION  I. 

Preliminary    Observations. 

One  main  pillar  of  domestic  slavery,  as  it  now  ex 
ists  in  the  United  States,  is  the  idea  that  it  rests  upon 
law.  Law  is  regarded  with  veneration,  and  no 
where  more  so  than  in  the  United  States,  as  the  great 
foundation  and  support  of  the  right  of  property,  of 
personal  rights,  in  a  word — of  social  organization. 
Jurists,  with  a  natural  disposition  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  a  profession  to  which  most  of  them 
have  belonged,  have  been  induced  to  overlook  or  to 
disregard  the  natural  foundation  of  rights.  Most  of 
them  represent  the  idea  of  property  as  resting  on  a 
merely  artificial  basis — the  law ;  not  the  law  of  na 
ture,  but  the  law  of  convention.  Upon  that  same 
artificial  basis,  too,  they  are  inclined  mainly  to  rest 
even  the  most  important  of  personal  rights.  These 
ideas,  widely  spread  through  the  community,  greatly 
modify  public  opinion  upon  the  question  of  slavery. 
In  the  abstract,  slavery,  all  admit,  is  sheer  cruelty  and 
injustice.  But  slavery,  as  it  exists  in  the  United 
States,  is  supposed  to  be  legal;  and  being  legal,  is 
supposed  to  acquire  a  certain  character  of  right.  To 
use  our  best  efforts  for  the  suppression  of  cruelty  and 
injustice,  is  admitted  to  be  a  moral  duty.  But  then 
it  is  a  moral  duty,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  a 
paramount  duty,  to  obey  the  law. 

15  (169) 


170  ,          DESPOTISM 

Prevailing  ideas  on  the  theory  of  government  tend 
precisely  the  same  way.  Those  ideas,  derived  from 
Hobbes,  Locke,  and  Rousseau,  represent  government 
as  a  contract.  The  natural  state  of  man,  the  state  of 
nature,  is  assumed  to  be  a  state  of  hostility  on  the 
part  of  each  individual  against  every  other,  or,  ac 
cording  to  Rousseau,  of  total  isolation.  To  escape 
out  of  this  wretched  condition,  men,  we  are  told, 
resorted  to  the  artificial  expedient  of  societies  and  gov 
ernments  founded  on  contract.  According  to  this 
theory,  the  only  moral  principle  involved  in  the  idea 
of  government  is — Contract ;  and  this  contract,  we 
are  told,  must  be  preserved  inviolate,  or  government 
is  at  an  end,  and  chaos  comes  again.  No  matter  how 
absurd ;  no  matter  how  unjust  towards  ourselves  or 
others:  a  bargain  is  a  bargain ;  and  though  it  stipu 
lates  for  the  pound  of  flesh,  it  must  be  fulfilled. 
Many  excellent  men,  ready  to  denounce  slavery  in 
the  abstract  as  the  sum  of  all  iniquities,  will  tell  us, 
in  the  same  breath,  that  the  "  compromises  of  the 
constitution"  guaranty  its  existence.  It  is  morally 
wrong,  they  say,  to  attempt  to  evade  or  get  over, 
or  set  aside,  those  compromises — an  appeal  to 
notions  of  mercantile  honor  not  without  a  powerful 
influence  upon  the  best  portion  of  the  community. 

These  opinions  respecting  law  and  government  in 
volve,  indeed,  the  inconsistency  and  absurdity  of  sup 
posing  that  men  have  power,  by  arrangement  and 
convention,  to  make  that  artificially  right  which 
naturally  is  wrong — an  inconsistency  and  absurdity 
which  there  have  not  been  wanting  able  writers  to 
expose.  These  writers  have  shown  clearly  enough, 
that  the  basis  of  law,  the  basis  of  property,  the  basis 
of  personal  rights,  the  basis  of  government,  are  to  be 
sought  for  and  found  not  in  any  artificial  contracts,  or 
arbitrary  statutes  or  usages,  but  in  the  nature  and 
constitution  of  man.  They  have  shown  clearly 
enough,  that  law,  so  far  as  it  has  any  binding  moral 
force,  is  and  must  be  conformable  to  natural  princi 
ples  of  right;  indeed,  that  in  this  conformity  alone  its 


IN    AMERICA.  171 

moral  binding  force  consists;  and  that  so  far  as  this 
conformity  is  wanting,  what  is  called  law  is  mere 
violence  and  tyranny,  to  which  a  man  may  submit 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  but  which  he  has  a  moral  right 
to  resist  passively  at  all  times,  and  forcibly  when  he 
has  any  fair  prospect  of  success.  Such,  indeed,  was 
the  principle  upon  which  the  American  Revolution 
was  justified.  The  acts  of  parliament  of  which  the 
colonies  complained,  had  all  the  fo^rns  of  law,  and 
Mansfield  and  other  great  lawyers  said  they  were  law. 
But  in  the  view  of  the  colonists,  they  lacked  the 
substance  without  which  law  cannot  exist.  They  sub 
verted  those  fundamental  rights  embodied  in  that 
maxim  and  usage  of  the  English  constitution,  which 
couples  taxation  and  representation  together.  Tax 
ation  without  representation  was  denounced  by  the 
colonists  as  mere  robbery,  to  which,  though  concealed 
under  the  form  of  law,  they  were  not  legally  obliged 
to,  and  would  not,  submit. 

The  principle  of  the  perpetuity  and  inviolability  of 
contracts,  no  matter  what  their  object,  character,  or 
operation,  has  been  attacked  with  no  less  energy  and 
success.  It  has  been  triumphantly  shown,  that  the 
very  essence  and  substratum  of  contract  is,  mutual 
benefit.  Contracts,  whether  in  law  or  morals,  have  no 
binding  force  without  a  consideration,  a  good  and 
valuable  consideration.  Men  cannot  bargain  away 
either  their  own  rights  or  the  rights  of  others.  All 
such  pretended  contracts  are  void  from  the  beginning 
— the  spawn  of  fraud  in  the  one  party,  and  ignorance 
in  the  other,  or  of  injustice  and  immoral  intentions  in 
both.  To  say,  that  by  committing  the  folly  or  the 
crime  of  contracting  to  do  an  immoral  act,  a  man 
lays  himself  under  a  moral  obligation  to  do  that  im 
moral  act,  is  to  overturn  the  very  foundations  of 
morality.  Nor  are  these  principles  the  mere  notions 
of  theoretical  moralists.  So  far  as  relates  to  private 
contracts,  they  are  fully  acknowledged  and  admitted 
by  all  courts  of  law  throughout  the  civilized,  world. 
They  constitute,  indeed,  the  fundamental  principle 


172  DESPOTISM 

upon  which  those  courts  administer  the  law  of  con 
tracts. 

But  all  these  appeals  to  general  principles,  however 
able  and  conclusive,  have,  when  applied  to  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery,  but  little  weight  with  the  great  body 
of  the  community.  Did  they  relate  to  points  in 
which  that  body  had  a  direct,  obvious,  personal  in- 
terest,  the  appeal,  no  doubt,  would  be  irresistible. 
When  Andros,  governor  of  New  England,  undertook 
to  deprive  people  of  their  lands,  under  pretence  of 
defective  titles,  "  the  men  of  Massachusetts  did  much 
quote  Lord  Coke  ; "  and  finding  that  useless,  they 
stripped  Andros  of  his  power.  When  Grenville  at 
tempted  to  levy  taxes  without  their  consent,  they 
were  ready  at  once  to  resort  to  fundamental  princi 
ples,  and,  when  those  principles  failed,  to  their  mus 
kets.  Then,  the  case  touched  themselves.  When  it 
only  touches  the  unfortunate  negroes  of  the  southern 
states,  or  a  few  poor  colored  people  of  the  north,  it  is 
quite  a  different  matter.  Appeal  to  principle  is  then 
denounced  as  wild  and  visionary.  Always  fearful  of 
effort  and  responsibility,  the  great  mass  of  the  com 
munity  intrench  themselves  on  this  question  behind 
statutes,  decisions,  usage,  the  opinions  of  lawyers, 
and  the  current  notions  of  the  day.  To  be  sure, 
slavery  is  wrong  and  unjust,  and  impolitic  and  wick 
ed,  but  then  it  is — legal. 

Nor,  indeed,  is  this  conduct  to  be  wondered  at, 
the  very  courts,  those  reverend  depositories  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  law,  those  vicegerents  upon  earth 
of  eternal  equity  and  justice,  having  themselves  set  the 
example.  In  mere  questions  of  private  right,  the 
courts  resort,  without  hesitation,  to  those  eternal  prin 
ciples  of  right  reason,  that  is,  of  true  morality,  which 
they  boast  to  be  the  foundation  of  law ;  and  they  set 
aside,  without  hesitation,  every  private  contract  which 
has  in  it  any  trace  or  tincture  of  fraud  or  crime.  But 
when  it  comes  to  the  enforcement  of  so  called  politi 
cal  contracts,  a  sad  change  is  observable.  Individual 
lawyers,  indeed  even  judges  on  the  bench,  of  the 


IN    AMERICA.  173 

highest  eminence,  have  not  hesitated  to  say,  that  an 
act  of  parliament  contrary  to  the  law  of  God,  that  is, 
contrary  to  the  eternal  principles  of  right,  is  void. 
»  Such  opinions  have  been  thrown  out  incidentally, 
•  with  great  apparent  boldness  and  decision.  But  when 
has  an  act  of  legislation  been  set  aside  on  that  ground  ? 
No  court  in  England  or  America  has  ever  yet  dared 
to  do  it.  Courts  have  bowed  submissively  at  the  feet 
of  the  governments,  their  creators,  ascribing  to  those 
creators  an  omnipotence  over  right  and  wrong  greater 
than  the  philosophy  of  our  day  is  willing  to  allow 
even  to  God  himself.  They  hold,  indeed,  to  the 
maxim  Fiat  justitia^  ruat  cailum,  but  in  this  sense : 
"  the  will  of  the  government  mast  be  done,  though 
heaven  itself  be  trampled  under  foot."  It  must  be 
admitted  as  the  settled  doctrine  of  courts  of  law,  that 
the  supreme  legislative  authority  has  the  power  to 
declare  to  be  law  even  that  which  is  against  right. 
But  this  has  been  a  forced  concession ;  and  as  Gal 
ileo,  when  obliged  by  the  Inquisition  to  confess  that 
the  earth  stood  still,  mumbled  yet  between  his  teeth, 
as  he  rose  from  his  knees,  "It  moves  though," — so 
our  courts  of  law,  blushing  and  stammering  at  the 
disgraceful  concession  extorted  from  them  by  fear  and 
power,  have  done  their  best  to  limit  and  to  nullify 
that  concession.  If  the  supreme  legislature  chooses 
to  say  that  manifest  wrong  shall  be  law,  the  courts 
submit  to  enforce  it  as  such.  But  then  they  will 
never  presuppose  that  the  supreme  legislature  in 
tends  to  do  any  thing  so  absurd  and  cruel.  If  the 
intention  is  plain,  manifest,  and  clear,  it  must  be 
enforced;  but  the  courts  will  never  resort  to  implica 
tion,  or  conjecture,  or  construction,  to  make  out  any 
such  intention.  This  principle  in  the  interpretation 
of  legal  enactments,  perfectly  well  settled  and  estab 
lished  in  all  the  courts  of  England  and  America,  is 
thus  laid  down  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  in  the  case 
of  United  States  v.  Fisher,  2  Cranch,  390.  "  Where 
rights  are  infringed,  where  fundamental  principles  are 
overthrown,  where  the  general  system  of  the  laws  is 
15* 


174  DESPOTISM 

departed  from,  the  legislative  intention  must  be  ex 
pressed  with  irresistible  clearness,  to  induce  a  court 
of  justice  to  suppose  a  design  to  effect  such  objects." 

It  is  thus  that,  in  all  cases  of  injustice  attempted 
under  the  form  of  legislation,  courts,  while  admitting 
the  power  of  the  legislature,  yet  reserve  to  themselves 
a  power  to  defeat  the  wicked  legislative  intention,  by 
refusing  to  suppose  the  legislature  capable  of  any 
such  intention.  But  the  extent  to  which  this  indirect 
veto  power  is  carried  out  in  particular  cases,  must 
evidently  depend  very  much  upon  circumstances,  and 
especially  upon  the  character  and  position  of  the 
court.  Where  a  court  is  exceedingly  indisposed  to 
see,  and  is  so  situated  as  to  be  able  to  give  effect  to 
its  inclinations,  "irresistible  clearness"  is  out  of  the 
question.  No  possible  form  of  words  can  produce  it. 
Now  the  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  court  to  see  or 
not  to  see  a  wicked  intention,  will  depend  upon  two 
things  :  first,  the  opinion  of  the  court  as  to  the  degree 
and  aggravation  of  the  wickedness ;  secondly,  their 
opinion  as  to  the  amount  of  support  likely  to  be  found 
in  the  community,  should  an  attempt  be  made  to  de 
feat  that  wicked  intention. 

Take  the  case  of  slavery  for  example.  Suppose 
that  in  a  slave-holding  community  the  question  of  the 
legality  of  slavery  is  raised,  and  certain  legislative 
acts  are  quoted  to  sustain  it.  If  the  court  should 
happen  to  entertain  the  opinions  professed  by  Mr. 
Calhoun,  that  slavery  is  not  only  a  blessing  in  itself, 
but  the  essential  foundation  of  a  republican  govern 
ment,  of  course  they  would  see,  with  great  facility, 
an  intention  in  the  quoted  acts  to  give  to  slavery  a 
legal  basis.  Even  if  they  entertained  the  more  com 
mon  opinion,  avowed  by  Mr.  Clay,  that  slavery, 
though  an  evil  in  itself,  is  yet,  under  existing  circum 
stances,  a  necessary  evil,  the  only  means  of  preserving 
the  two  races  of  whites  and  blacks  from  a  war  of 
extermination,  they  would  still  find  no  great  difficulty 
in  perceiving  a  legislative  intention  to  legalize  slavery. 
But  suppose  the  judges  have  the  feelings  proper  to 


IN    AMERICA.  175 

men  enlightened  and  humane ;  suppose  their  eyes 
fully  open  to  the  enormous  criminality  of  slavery  ; 
suppose  they  saw  in  vivid  colors  all  its  multiplied 
evils  and  miseries,  both  for  masters  and  slaves — it 
would  be  very  difficult  for  any  form  of  words  to  es 
tablish,  with  "  irresistible  clearness,"  in  the  minds  of 
such  men,  a  legislative  intention  to  legalize  so  much 
folly  and  crime.  If,  besides,  they  saw  opinions  hos 
tile  to  slavery  openly  avowed  and  spreading  around 
them;  if  they  saw  a  certainty  of  being  powerfully 
sustained  in  reinstating  justice  on  her  seat, — what 
form  of  words  would  be  able  to  satisfy  such  a  court 
that  the  supreme  legislative  authority  intended  to 
sanction  a  system  so  horribly  unjust  ?  At  all  events, 
a  court  so  constituted  and  so  situated,  would  surely 
never  discover  any  such  intention  in  a  case  where 
there  were  either  no  words  at  all,  or  but  very  obscure 
and  vague  ones. 

!  It  is  the  glory  of  the  tribunals  of  the  common  law, 
that,  even  when  trampled  in  the  mud  by  the  feet  of 
power,  they  have  never  consented  to  lie  there  in  quiet. 
They  have  struggled,  always  to  a  certain  extent,  often 
nobly,  to  rise  again,  to  cleanse  the  ermine  robes  of 
justice  from  the  mire  of  ignorant,  weak,  cruel,  self- 
seeking  legislation,  to  lift  again  on  high  the  balance 
of  equity,  and,  to  the  full  extent  of  their  power  and 
their  light,  to  weigh  out  again  equal  justice  to  all. 
But  to  enable  them  to  do  this,  the  community  about 
them  must  uphold  their  hands.  What  can  four  or 
five  gray-haired  men  do  against  the  ferocity,  the 
wrongheadedness,  the  intentional  injustice  of  a  whole 
community  ?  Men  formed  by  long  experience  of  the 
world  in  its  least  amiable  aspects,  will  not  cast  their 
pearls  before  swine's  feet.  The  sort  of  men  who  oc 
cupy  the  judicial  bench  are  seldom  much  inclined  to 
outrun  popular  opinion ;  yet  however  it  may  be  fash 
ionable  among  them  to  affect  to  despise  such  opinion, 
it  is  none  the  less  true  that  their  own  views  are  greatly 
influenced,  if  not  indeed  mainly  determined,  by  the 
prevailing  sentiment  of  the  community  about  them. 


176  DESPOTISM 

In  these  considerations  we  shall  find  a  complete 
reply  to  a  taunt  frequently  thrown  in  our  teeth  by  the 
advocates  of  the  legality  of  slavery.  What  more 
absurd,  they  say,  than  to  question  a  legality  recog 
nized  and  admitted  ever  since  the  settlement  of  the 
country ! 

But  why  absurd  ? 

From  a  period  long  preceding  the  settlement  of 
North  America  down  to  the  famous  decision  in 
Somerset's  case,  three  or  four  years  before  our  decla 
ration  of  independence,  the  legality  of  slavery  was 
also  recognized  and  admitted  in  England.  It  required 
the  indefatigable  perseverance  of  a  Granville  Sharpe, 
the  enlightened  humanity  of  a  Mansfield,  an  age 
awake  to  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  a  community 
free,  in  a  great  measure,  from  the  bias  of  interest,  to 
draw  up  "from  the  deep  well  of  the  law"  that  "  ami 
able  and  admirable  secret," 

"  No  slave  can  breathe  in  England." 

"  The  knowledge  of  the  law,"  says  my  Lord  Coke,  "  is 
like  a  deep  well,  out  of  which  each  man  draweth 
according  to  the  strength  of  his  understanding."  Is 
it  too  much  to  hope,  that  we  shall  yet  have  American 
judges  with  hearts  and  understandings  strong  enough 
to  draw  up  out  of  that  same  deep  well  the  twin 
secret,  that  there  is  not,  and  never  was,  any  legal 
slavery  in  America?  It  is  not  strength  of  under 
standing  that  has  failed  us.  Have  we  not  had  on  the 
bench  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  a  Jay,  a 
Wilson,  a  Marshall,  a  Story  ?  What  has  been  lack 
ing  is  heart,  conscience,  courage ;  more  than  all,  the 
surrounding  support  of  an  enlightened  and  humane 
public  opinion,  to  sustain  our  judges  in  looking  this 
lurking  devil  of  slavery  in  the  face.  No  court  of 
justice  in  the  United  States  has  ever  yet  dared  do  it, 
lest  being  called  upon  to  decide  against  the  legality  of 
slavery,  they  might  be  called  upon,  in  so  doing,  to  set 
at  defiance  a  conglomeration  of  interests  and  preju 
dices  which  they  have  not  had  courage  to  brave, 


IN    AMERICA.  177 

which  no  prudent  court  could  be  expected  to  brave. 
And  what  has  been  wanting,  no  less  than  a  fearless 
court,  a  court  daring  enough  to  face,  in  the  cause  of 
justice  and  right,  the  ferocious  prejudices  of  a  fero 
cious  nation — has  been,  a  learned,  independent,  fearless 
bar.  The  court  alone,  unaided  by  the  bar,  is  incapa 
ble  of  administering  justice.  Points  must  first  be 
presented,  before  they  can  be  decided  ;  and  how  much 
depends  on  the  manner  and  the  medium  of  their 
presentation!  Would  the  English  law  of  treason 
ever  have  been  stripped  of  so  many  of  its  terrors,  and 
reduced  so  much  within  the  limits  of  justice  and 
moderation,  but  for  the  earnest  struggles  of  an  Erskine 
and  a  Curran  ?  Had  O'Connell  been  an  ordinary 
lawyer,  or  an  ordinary  culprit,  would  the  English 
House  of  Lords  ever  have  seen  those  flaws  in  his 
indictment  which  the  Irish  judges  had  overlooked? 

No  council  has  ever  yet  been  retained  for  the  slaves  ; 
no  body  of  influential  friends  has  ever  appeared,  to 
impress  upon  the  judges  the  necessity  of  serious  in 
vestigation,  and  to  assure  them  of  support  in  sus 
taining  the  right.  The  case  has  gone  by  default; 
or  rather,  it  has  never  yet  been  entered  in  court. 


SECTION  II. 

Slavery  as  a  Colonial  Institution. 

Servitude  in  the  Middle  Ages  existed  in  England 
under  two  forms.  Villeins  in  gross  were  slaves,  in 
several  respects  the  same  as  ours,  transferable  from 
master  to  master,  like  any  other  chattel.  Villeins 
regardant  were  serfs,  attached  to  the  soil,  inseparable 
from  it,  and  transferable  only  with  it.  These  same 
two  forms  of  servitude,  but  recently  abolished  in 
Hungary,  may  still  be  seen  in  Russia.  Villeinage 


178  DESPOTISM 

was  hereditary  —  the  villeins  being  the  descendants 
of  the  ancient  Britons  and  Saxons,  held  in  servitude 
from  a  time  whereof  the  memory  of  man  ran  not  to 
the  contrary. 

Previous  to  the  discovery  of  America,  or  shortly 
after  that  period,  English  villeinage  in  gross  had 
almost  ceased  to  exist.  So  late  as  the  reign  of  Eliza 
beth,  only  a  few  villeins  regardant  remained,  in 
some  obscure  corners.  The  lawyers  and  the  clergy, 
in  whom  the  principal  intelligence  of  that  age  was 
vested,  had  both  greatly  contributed  to  this  result. 
In  all  questions  touching  villeinage,  the  English  com 
mon  law  courts  had  made  it  a  point  to  lean  in  favor 
of  freedom.  All  men  were  supposed  to  be  free,  and 
the  burden  of  proof  lay  on  the  claimant.  To  prove  a 
man  a  villein,  unless  he  confessed  himself  such  in 
open  court, — and  the  last  recorded  confession  of  this 
kind  was  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  Henry  VI.,  (1441,) 
—it  was  necessary  to  show  title  to  him  by  proscrip 
tion  ;  that  is,  to  show  that,  being  born  in  lawful  wed 
lock,  he  was  descended  of  a  stock  of  villeins  on  the 
father's  side  time  out  of  memory.  For  the  English 
common  law  courts  refused  to  recognize  the  doctrine 
of  the  civil  law — that  favorite  doctrine  of  all  slave- 
holding  communities — that  the  children  of  female 
slaves  inherit  from  the  mother  the  condition  of  slavery. 
They  held,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  child  followed  the 
condition  of  the  father.  Bastard  children,  being  in 
the  eye  of  the  law  children  without  fathers,  of  course 
were  born  free — a  doctrine  which  gave  freedom  to 
great  numbers,  for,  in  all  slave-holding  communities, 
the  masters  esteem  it  a  part  of  their  right  to  use  the 
slave  women  as  concubines. 

Taking  a  hint  apparently  from  the  Mahometans, 
the  clergy  had  denounced  it  as  a  scandalous  and  out 
rageous  thing  for  one  Christian  to  hold  another  in  sla 
very;  and  their  preaching  on  this  point  had  been  so 
successful,  that  about  the  time  of  the  discovery  of 
America  it  had  come  to  be  considered  a  settled  mat 
ter,  not  in  England  only,  but  throughout  Western 


IN     AMERICA.  179 

Europe,  that  no   Christian  ought  to  be,  or  lawfully 
could  be,  held  as  a  slave. 

But  with  the  customary  narrowness  of  that  age,  this 
immunity  from  slavery  was  not  thought  to  extend  to 
infidels  or  pagans.  While  the  emancipation  of  serfs 
was  going  on,  black  slaves,  brought  by  the  Portu 
guese  from  the  coast  of  Guinea,  became  common  in 
the  south  of  Europe,  and  a  few  found  their  way  to 
England.  The  first  Englishman  who  engaged  in  this 
business  was  Sir  John  Hawkins,  who,  during  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  made  several  voyages  to  the  coast  of 
Guinea  for  negroes,  whom  he  disposed  of  to  the 
Spaniards  of  the  West  Indies.  The  queen  granted 
several  patents  to  encourage  this  traffic;  yet  she  is 
said  to  have  expressed  to  Hawkins  her  hope  that  the 
negroes  went  voluntarily  from  Africa,  declaring  that 
if  any  force  were  used  to  enslave  them,  she  doubted 
not  it  would  bring  down  the  vengeance  of  Heaven 
upon  those  guilty  of  such  wickedness.  The  newly- 
discovered  coasts  of  America  were  also  visited  by 
kidnappers.  Few,  if  any,  of  the  early  voyagers  scru 
pled  to  seize  the  natives,  and  to  carry  them  home  as 
slaves.  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  so  active  and  so 
conspicuous  in  the  early  settlement  of  New  England, 
had  a  number  of  these  captured  natives,  whom  he 
claimed  as  his  property,  kept  under  restraint,  and 
employed  as  guides  and  pilots.  The  Mosaic  law, 
then  recently  made  familiar  by  the  English  transla 
tion  of  the  Bible,  and  considered  high  authority  on 
all  questions  of  right,  seemed  to  countenance  this 
distinction  between  Christians  and  infidels.  The 
Jews,  according  to  the  Mosaic  code,  could  hold  their 
brethren  as  servants  only  for  a  period  of  seven  years, 
or  at  the  utmost,  till  the  next  Jubilee,  (for  it  is  not 
very  easy  to  reconcile  the  apparently  conflicting  pro 
visions  on  this  subject  in  Exodus  and  Leviticus ;)  but 
of  "the  heathen  round  about,"  they  might  buy  "bond 
men,  as  an  inheritance  for  ever."  The  practice  of 
the  early  English  settlers  in  America,  and  their  ideas 
of  the  English  law  on  the  subject,  corresponded  ex- 


180  DESPOTISM 

actly  with  these  Jewish  provisions,  indeed  would  seem 
to  have  been  regulated  by  them.  Thus  they  took 
with  them,  or  caused  to  be  brought  out,  a  large  num 
ber  of  indented  Christian  servants,  whose  period  of 
bondage  was  limited  to  seven  years,  and  who,  till 
after  the  Revolution,  constituted  a  distinct  class  in 
the  community.  Indeed,  of  the  white  immigrants  to 
America  preceding  that  era,  the  larger  portion  would 
seem  to  have  arrived  there  under  this  servile  charac 
ter.  But  while  the  servitude  of  Christians  was  thus 
limited,  the  colonists  supposed  themselves  justified  in 
holding  negroes  and  Indians  as  slaves  for  life.  The 
first  English  colonists  arrived  in  Virginia  in  1607.  In 
1620  a  Dutch  trading  vessel  entered  James'  River 
with  twenty  negroes  on  board,  who  were  sold  to  the 
settlers.  Other  similar  importations  continued  to  be 
made  from  time  to  time  ;  but  it  not  being  imagined 
that  any  local  legislation  was  necessary  to  give  to 
the  purchasers  of  these  black  servants  the  right  to 
hold  them  and  their  posterity  as  bondmen  for  ever, 
more  than  forty  years  elapsed  before  any  notice  was 
taken  of  slaves  by  the  Virginia  statutes,  as  distinct 
from  other  servants. 

It  was  not  in  Virginia,  but  in  New  England,  that 
the  earliest  colonial  legislation  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  occurred.  The  Massachusetts  "  Body  of  Lib 
erties,"  or  "  Fundamentals,"  as  they  were  called,  first 
promulgated  in  1641,  contain  the  following  provision  : 
"  There  shall  never  be  any  bond  slavery,  villeinage, 
nor  captivity  among  us,  unless  it  be  lawful  captives 
taken  in  just  wars,  and  such  strangers  as  willingly  sell 
themselves,  or  are  sold,  unto  us"  But  in  thus  giving 
an  express  sanction  to  negro  and  Indian  slavery,  the 
freemen  of  Massachusetts  did  not  conceive  themselves 
to  be  running  at  all  counter  to  the  law  of  England, 
to  which,  by  their  charter,  they  were  bound  to  con 
form,  though  on  ecclesiastical  points  somewhat  in 
clined  to  deviate  from  it.  On  the  contrary,  they  sup 
posed  themselves  to  be  conforming  as  well  to  the 


IN     AMERICA.  181 

law  of  England,  as  to  "  the  law  of  God,  established 
in  Israel."  This  Massachusetts  law,  it  will  be  per 
ceived,  not  only  sanctioned  slavery,  but  also  the  slave- 
trade.  An  American  historian,  always  too  much  a 
panegyrist  or  an  apologist  to  be  implicitly  relied  on, 
has  indeed  undertaken  to  claim  for  Massachusetts  the 
honor  of  having  denounced,  at  that  early  day,  as 
"  malefactors  and  murderers,"  those  "  who  sailed  to 
Guinea,  to  trade  for  negroes" — a  claim  founded  upon 
a  misapprehension  of  a  passage  in  Winthrop's  Jour 
nal.  It  appears,  on  the  contrary,  from  other  passages 
in  Winthrop,  that  "the  trade  to  Guinea  for  negroes" 
was  recognized  as  a  just  and  lawful  traffic.  New 
England  vessels,  after  carrying  cargoes  of  staves  to 
Madeira,  were  accustomed  to  sail  to  Guinea  for 
slaves,  who  generally,  as  there  was  little  or  no  de 
mand  for  them  at  Boston,  were  carried  to  Barba- 
does,  or  the  other  English  settlements  in  the  West 
Indies,  there  to  be  sold.  In  the  particular  case  above 
referred  to,  instead  of  buying  negroes,  in  the  regular 
course  of  the  Guinea  trade,  the  Boston  crew  had 
joined  with  some  Londoners  already  on  the  coast, 
and,  on  pretence  of  some  quarrel  with  the  natives,  had 
landed  "  a  murderer," — the  expressive  name  of  a 
small  piece  of  cannon, — had  attacked  a  negro  village 
on  a  Sunday,  and  after  killing  many  of  the  inhab 
itants,  had  made  a  few  prisoners,  of  whom  two  boys 
fell  to  the  share  of  the  Bostonians.  A  violent  quarrel 
between  the  master,  mate,  and  owners,  as  to  the 
mutual  settlement  of  their  accounts,  brought  out  the 
whole  history  of  this  voyage  before  the  magistrates, 
one  of  whom  presented  a  petition  to  the  General 
Court,  charging  the  master  and  mate,  not  with  having 
"  sailed  for  Guinea  to  trade  for  negroes,"  as  the  case  is 
represented,  but  with  the  threefold  offence  of  murder, 
manstealing,  and  Sabbath-breaking, — the  first  two 
capital,  by  the  Fundamental  Laws  of  the  colony,  and 
all  three  "  capital,  by  the  laws  of  God."  It  was  right 
enough  to  purchase  slaves,  but  wrong  to  steal  them, 
especially  on  a  Sunday,  and  to  commit  murder  in 
16 


182  DESPOTISM 

doing  so.  The  kidnapped  negroes  were  ordered  to  be 
sent  back  ;  but  no  other  punishment  was  inflicted,  the 
court  doubting  their  authority  to  punish  crimes  com 
mitted  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 

The  honor  of  having  made  the  first  American  pro 
test  against  negro  slavery,  really  belongs  not  to  Mas 
sachusetts,  but  to  Roger  Williams  and  his  fellow- 
settlers  at  Providence  in  Rhode  Island,  exiles  and 
refugees  from  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  because 
they  had  embraced  the  doctrine  of  "  soul  liberty,"  by 
which  they  signified  perfect  freedom  of  opinion  in 
matters  of  religion.  The  people  of  Providence,  think 
ing  probably  that  body  liberty  was  a  necessary  sup 
plement  to  soul  liberty,  enacted  a  law  in  1652,  placing 
"black  mankind"  on  the  same  level,  with  regard  to 
limitation  of  service,  as  white  servants,  and  absolutely 
prohibiting  perpetual  slavery  within  their  territories. 
Unfortunately  for  the  honor  of  Rhode  Island,  this 
law,  never  in  force  except  in  the  town  of  Providence, 
presently  fell  into  abeyance ;  and  within  a  century 
not  only  did  negro  slavery  become  common  in  Rhode 
Island,  but  its  inhabitants  engaged  in  the  African 
trade,  for  the  supply  of  the  other  colonies. 

In  Virginia  the  ratio  of  slaves  to  the  white  popula 
tion,  though  for  many  years  not  large,  was  much 
greater  than  in  New  England;  but  it  was  not  till 
cases  arose  for  which  the  English  common  law,  as 
the  colonists  understood  it,  made  no  provisions  satis 
factory  to  the  slave-holders,  that  any  distinct  mention 
of  slavery  occurs  in  the  legislation  of  that  colony. 
In  the  course  of  forty  years,  by  which  time  the  slaves 
numbered  two  thousand  in  a  population  of  forty 
thousand,  mulatto  children  had  been  born  and  grown 
to  manhood.  What  should  be  the  condition  of  these 
children  ? 

By  the  English  law,  when  the  fathers  were  free  the 
children  were  free  also.  But  this  did  not  suit  the 
interest  of  the  slave-holders.  The  mulattoes  were 
few,  ignorant,  and  helpless,  and  the  Virginia  legisla- 


IN    AMERICA.  183 

ture,  notwithstanding  its  acknowledged  obligation  to 
conform  strictly  to  English  law,  did  not  hesitate  to 
disregard  a  great  and  well-established  doctrine  of 
that  law,  and  substituting  a  provision  of  the  civil,  that 
is,  of  the  Roman  code,  to  enact — that  children  should 
follow  the  condition  of  the  mother ;  and  this  principle, 
thus  unwarrantably  introduced  into  Virginia  in  1662, 
was  ultimately  adopted,  by  statute  or  usage,  in  all 
the  British  colonies. 

Another  question,  not  less  interesting  to  the  slave 
holders,  presently  arose.  Of  the  negroes  brought  to 
Virginia,  some. had  been  converted  and  baptized,  and 
this  was  the  case  to  a  still  greater  extent  with  those 
born  in  the  colony.  By  what  right  were  these  Chris 
tians  held  as  slaves  ? 

The  law  of  England,  even  according  to  the  colonial 
view  of  it,  did  not  allow  the  slavery  of  Christians.  It 
was  only  pagans  and  infidels  who  could  be  enslaved. 
But  the  Virginia  assembly  came  to  the  relief  of  the 
masters ;  and  with  that  audacious  disregard  of  all  law 
and  all  right  except  its  own  good  pleasure,  by  which 
slave-holding  legislation  has  ever  been  characterized, 
they  enacted,  in  utter  defiance  of  the  English  law, 
— even  their  own  version  of  it, — that  negroes  convert 
ed  and  baptized  should  not  thereby .  become  free. 
This  act  bears  date  in  1669.  Another  act,  passed 
the  same  year,  in  equal  defiance  of  the  English  law, 
provided,  that  killing  slaves  by  extremity  of  correction 
should  not  be  esteemed  felony,  "  since  it  cannot  be 
presumed  that  prepense  malice  should  induce  any 
man  to  destroy  his  own  estate." 

For  reasons  of  policy  or  humanity,  it  had  been'pro- 
vided  that  Indians  should  not  be  held  as  slaves, — a 
provision,  whatever  the  reason  of  it,  which  places  the 
legislation  of  Virginia,  on  this  point,  in  honorable 
contrast  to  that  of  New  England,  where  the  contrary 
practice  prevailed.  But  did  this  prohibition  extend 
to  Indian  captives  taken  in  war,  elsewhere  than  in 
Virginia,  and  brought  to  that  colony  for  sale  ? 

This  question  was  settled  in  1670,  by  enacting  that 


184  DESPOTISM 

"  all  servants,  not  being  Christians,  imported  by  ship 
ping,  shall  be  slaves  for  their  lives,"  those  imported 
by  land  to  serve  for  a  limited  time.  Freedom  had  just 
been  denied  to  Christian  negroes  converted  in  the  col 
ony,  or  born  there  ;  but  the  assembly  did  not  venture  to 
usurp  any  such  jurisdiction  over  stranger  Christians. 

As  a  necessary  pendant  to  the  slave  code,  the  sys 
tem  of  subjecting  the  free  to  disabilities  now  also 
began.  Thus  it  was  enacted  in  1670,  that  negro  wo 
men,  though  free,  should  be  rated  and  taxed  as  "  tith- 
ables,"  that  is,  should  pay  a  poll  tax,  exacted  in  the 
case  of  whites  only  from  the  men.  Free  negroes  and 
Indians  were  also  disqualified  to  purchase  or  hold 
white  servants. 

These  acts,  the  legislative  basis  of  slavery  in  Vir 
ginia,  were  enacted  during  the  government  of  Sir 
William  Berkeley,  well  known  for  his  famous  apos 
trophe — "  I  thank  God  we  have  no  free  schools  nor 
printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  these  hundred 
years;  for  learning  has  brought  disobedience,  and 
heresy,  and  sects  into  the  world,  and  printing  has 
divulged  them ;  and  libels  against  the  best  govern 
ment.  God  keep  us  from  both !  " — Nor  was  this  wish 
uttered  in  vain.  The  establishment  of  slavery  secured 
its  fulfilment.  Virginia  has  no  free  schools  to  this  day; 
none,  at  least,  worthy  of  the  name.  She  has,  indeed, 
a  few  printing-presses  ;  but  they  are  muzzled,  gagged, 
— effectually  restrained  from  libels  against  "the  best 
government " — for  such  in  that  state  the  oligarchy  of 
slave-holders  is  held  to  be. 

The  virtuous  resolution  of  Virginia  on  the  subject 
of  Indians  did  not  last  long ;  nor  did  freedom  from 
schools  and  printing-presses  keep  out  disobedience  and 
rebellion.  The  immediate  cause  of  Bacon's  insur 
rection,  so  famous  in  the  colonial  annals  of  Virginia, 
was  the  refusal  of  Berkeley  to  authorize  expeditions 
against  the  Indians,  who  had  lately  committed  some 
depredations.  Berkeley  preferred  a  scheme  of  defence 
by  forts.  The  colonists  alleged  that  his  interest  in 
the  fur-trade  made  him  too  tender  of  the  Indians ; 


IN    AMERICA,  185 

but  a  law  enacted  in  1676,  by  Bacon's  insurgent  as 
sembly,  might  seem  to  imply,  that  the  eagerness  of 
the  colonists  for  offensive  war  was  not  altogether  dis 
interested.  Into  an  act  for  the  prosecution  of  the 
Indian  war  a  provision  was  inserted,  that  Indian 
prisoners  might  be  held  as  slaves  ;  and  notwithstand 
ing  the  repeal,  after  the  suppression  of  the  insurrec 
tion,  of  all  the  other  of  Bacon's  laws,  this  provision 
was  still  continued  in  force. 

In  1682,  during  Culpepper's  administration,  the 
slave  code  of  Virginia  received  some  additions. 
Slaves  were  forbidden  to  carry  arms,  offensive  or 
defensive  ;  or  to  go  off  their  masters  plantation,  with 
out  a  written  pass  ;  or  to  lift  hand  against  a  Chris 
tian,  even  in  self-defence.  Runaways,  who  refused 
to  be  apprehended,  might  be  lawfully  killed.  Already 
had  the  internal  slave-trade  begun, — that  trade  in 
which  Virginia  still  bears  so  unhappy  a  part.  As 
yet,  however?  the  colony  was  purchaser,  not  seller, 
and  by  a  partial  repeal  of  the  existing  provision  in 
favor  of  stranger  Christians,  facilities  for  purchasing 
were  extended.  The  assembly  enacted  that  all  ser 
vants,  whether  negroes,  Moors,  mulattoes,  or  Indians, 
(including  those  bought  of  the  neighboring  or  other 
Indian  tribes,)  brought  into  the  colony  by  sea  or  land, 
whether  converted  to  Christianity  or  not,  provided 
they  were  not  of  Christian  parentage  and  country, 
might  be  held  as  slaves.  Yet,  with  all  this  eagerness 
for  new  purchases,  the  evils  of  the  slave  system  were 
already  felt.  The  colony  was  suffering  severely  from 
an  over-production  of  tobacco ;  to  such  a  degree,  that 
the  poorer  free  people  could  scarcely  purchase  clothes 
for  themselves ; — an  over-production  to  which,  as 
Culpepper  stated,  in  an  official  report,  "  the  buying  of 
blacks  had  exceedingly  contributed." 

In  1691,  shortly  after  the  breaking  out  of  the  first 
French  and  Indian  war,  policy  or  humanity,  or  both 
combined,  recovered  the  mastery,  and  the  slavery  of 
Indians,  sanctioned  by  statute  since  the  time  of 
Bacon's  rebellion,  was  now  finally  abolished,  Such 
16* 


186  DESPOTISM 

at  least  was  the  interpretation  given  by  the  courts  of 
Virginia,  subsequently  to  the  revolution,  (see  Pallas 
Sf  al.  v.  Hill  fy  al,  2  Henings'  and  Mumford's  Re- 
ports,  149,)  to  an  act  of  this  date,  repealing  all 
restraints  on  traffic  with  the  Indians,  and  declaring 
that  trade  thenceforth  free  and  open  with  "  all  Indians 
whatsoever."  But,  too  ignorant  or  too  helpless  to 
vindicate  their  rights,  "  multitudes  of  the  descendants 
of  Indians  in  Virginia,"  so  says  Hening,  the  learned 
and  laborious  editor  of  the  Virginia  statutes,  "  are 
still  unjustly  deprived  of  their  liberty,"  in  spite  of 
this  decision, — one  proof,  among  others,  how  little 
mere  legal  right,  though  officially  declared  by  the 
highest  tribunals,  avails  the  feeble  and  defenceless. 

By  the  Virginia  code,  as  revised  in  1705,  "  all  ser 
vants  imported  by  sea  or  land,  who  were  not  Chris 
tians  in  their  native  country,  (except  Turks  and  Moors 
in  amity  with  her  Majesty,  and  others  who  can  make 
due  proof  of  their  being  free  in  England,  or  any 
other  Christian  country,  before  they  were  shipped  in 
order  to  transportation  hither,)  shall  be  accounted  and 
be  slaves,  and  as  such  be  here  bought  and  sold,  not 
withstanding  a  conversion  to  Christianity  afterwards;" 
"  all  children  to  be  bond  or  free,  according  to  the 
condition  of  their  mothers."  But  even  in  this  act, 
under  which  near  half  the  population  of  Virginia  are 
still  held  as  slaves,  the  original  idea,  that  no  Christian 
could  be  reduced  to  slavery,  is  still  sufficiently  ap 
parent.  In  the  case  of  servants  newly  brought  into 
the  colony,  religion,  not  color,  nor  race,  is  made  the 
sole  test  of  distinction  between  slavery  and  indented 
service.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  practice,  it 
is  plain  enough,  that  under  this  act,  which  con 
tinued  unaltered  down  to  the  Revolution,  and  which 
still  forms  the  basis  of  slave  property  in  Virginia,  no 
negro,  even,  who  was  a  Christian  in  his  native  coun 
try,  could,  if  brought  to  Virginia,  be  held  there  as  a 
slave. 

This  code  of  1705  also  provided,  that  persons  con 
vict  in  England  of  crimes  punishable  with  loss  of 


IN    AMERICA.  187 

life  or  member,  and  "  all  negroes,  mulattoes,  and 
Indians,"  should  be  incapacitated  to  hold  office  in  the 
colony.  White  women  having  bastard  children  by 
negroes  or  mulattoes  were  to  pay  the  parish  fifteen 
pounds,  or,  in  default  of  payment,  to  be  sold  for  five 
years,  the  child  to  be  bound  out  as  a  servant  for 
thirty-one  years.  "  And  for  a  further  prevention  of 
that  abominable  mixture  and  spurious  issue,  which 
hereafter  may  increase  in  this  her  Majesty's  colony 
and  dominion,  as  well  by  English  and  other  white 
men  and  women  intermarrying  with  negroes  and 
mulattoes,"  as  by  unlawful  connection  with  them, 
it  was  enacted,  that  any  man  or  woman  intermarry 
ing  with  a  negro  or  mulatto,  bond  or  free,  should  be 
imprisoned  six  months  and  fined  ten  pounds, — the 
minister  celebrating  the  marriage  to  be  fined  also. 
Thus  early  was  the  bugbear  cry  of  "  amalgamation  " 
raised  in  Virginia.  Similar  laws  enacted  in  the 
other  colonies  operated  to  degrade  and  keep  down  the 
colored  race,  and  to  prevent  the  institution  of  slavery 
from  assuming  that  patriarchal  character,  by  which, 
in  other  countries,  it  is  greatly  softened,  and  some 
times  has  been  superseded. 

Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  striking  than  the  different 
treatment  bestowed  by  Anglo-American  slave-holders, 
especially  those  of  the  United  States,  upon  their  own 
children  by  slave  mothers,  and  the  behavior  of  Dutch, 
Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  French  slave-holders  to 
wards  their  children  similarly  begotten.  In  the  slave- 
holding  colonies  of  these  latter  nations,  That  white 
man  is  regarded  as  unnatural,  mean,  and  cruel,  who 
does  not,  if  his  ability  permit,  secure  for  his  colored 
children  emancipation  and  some  pecuniary  provision. 
Colored  children  are  not  less  numerous  in  the  United 
States ;  but  there  conventional  decorum  forbids  the 
white  father  to  recognize  his  colored  offspring  at  all, 
or  to  make  any  provision  for  them.  They  are  still  held 
and  sold  as  slaves ;  and  among  this  unfortunate  class 
may  be  found  the  descendants  of  more  than  one 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  patriot 


188  DESPOTISM 

of  the  Revolution,  leading  politician,  and  presidential 
candidate. 

The  example  of  the  Jews  in  their  treatment  of  the 
Canaanites,  was  cited  as  good  authority  in  all  the 
English  colonies  for  prohibiting  intermarriage  with 
negroes  and  Indians;  and  for  denouncing  the  mix 
ture  of  races  as  unnatural  and  wicked.  But  no  law 
could  control  the  appetite  of  the  planters  nor  prevent 
that  intermixture  which  inevitably  takes  place,  when 
ever  two  races  are  brought  into  contact,  especially  if 
one  race  be  held  in  slavery.  That  austere  morality 
(pretending  to  be  religious,)  for  which  the  United 
States  are  distinguished  above  all  nations  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  unless  kideed  the  palm  in  this  respect 
ought  to  be  yielded  to  the  mother  country,  has  been 
obliged,  in  this  case,  as  in  others,  to  content  itself,  in 
defect  of  conformity  to  its  rules,  with  cruel  grimace, 
and  a  lie  acted  out.  Hypocrisy,  is  said  to  be  the  trib 
ute  which  vice  pays  to  virtue, — a  tribute  of  which  the 
religious  treasuries  of  America  are  full.  The  vir 
tuous  man, — southern  church-member,  or  peradven- 
ture  minister  of  the  gospel, — expiates  his  peccadilloes 
with  his  female  slaves,  by  looking  on  his  own  children 
with  cold  glances,  in  which  no  recognition  dwells; 
and  as  a  farther  proof  of  his  austere  morals,  oppor 
tunity  offering,  he  sells  them  at  auction! 

Yet  in  Virginia,  this  antipathy  to  the  mixture  of 
races  was  not  and  is  not  carried  so  far  as  in  some  of 
the  more  southern  colonies.  The  grand  child  of  an 
Indian,  the  great-great  grand  child  of  a  negro,  all 
the  other  links  being  white,  become  themselves  white 
in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and  therefore  presumably  free. 

In  Maryland  slavery  had  existed  from  its  first  set 
tlement  ;  but  the  oldest  statute  on  the  subject  bears 
date  thirty  years  afterwards,  in  1663,  when  it  was 
enacted,  "  that  all  negroes  and  other  slaves  within  this 
province,  and  all  negroes  and  other  slaves  to  be  here 
after  imported,  shall  serve  during  life,  and  all  children 
born  of  any  negro  or  other  slave,  shall  be  slaves  as 


IN    AMERICA.  189 

their  fathers  were,  for  the  term  of  their  lives."  In 
1715,  however,  by  which  time  the  negroes  held  in 
bondage  composed  a  fifth  part  of  the  population,  this 
apparent  conformity  to  the  principles  of  the  English 
law  of  villeinage  touching  the  hereditary  descent  of 
servitude,  was  silently  dropped.  In  that  year,  upon 
occasion  of  the  restoration  of  the  government  to  the 
Calvert  family,  the  laws  of  Maryland  were  revised, 
and  the  new  code  provided,  "  that  all  negroes  and 
other  slaves,  already  imported  or  hereafter  to  be  im 
ported  into  this  province,  and  all  children  now  born 
or  hereafter  to  be  born  of  such  negroes  and  slaves, 
shall  be  slaves  during  their  natural  lives."  Upon  this 
statute  rest  all  the  claims  of  the  colonial  slave-holding 
system  of  Maryland  to  a  legal  foundation. 

The  "  grand  model,"  the  first  proprietary  constitu 
tion  of  Carolina,  the  production  of  the  celebrated 
Locke,  drawn  up  in  1670,  contained  the  following 
clause:  u  Every  freeman  of  Carolina  shall  have  abso 
lute  power  and  authority  over  his  negro  slaves,  of 
what  opinion  and  religion  soever."  But  "  the  grand 
model,"  in  compliance  with  the  repeated  and  earnest 
requests  of  the  colonists,  was  abrogated  in  1693,  and 
for  nineteen  years  the  system  of  slavery  in  South 
Carolina  remained  without  any  legal  basis,  except 
that  furnished  by  the  mistaken  notions  of  the  colonists 
as  to  the  English  law.  The  assembly,  however,  at 
length  thought  it  necessary  to  provide  some  statute 
authority  of  their  own  for  holding  two  thirds  of  the 
population  in  servitude;  and  an  act  for  that  purpose, 
passed  in  1712,  provided,  "  that  all  negroes,  mulattoes, 
mestizoes,  or  Indians,  which  at  any  time  heretofore 
were  sold,  or  now  are  held  or  taken  to  be,  or  hereafter 
shall  be,  bought  and  sold  for  slaves,  are  hereby  declared 
slaves,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  ;  "  with  exceptions, 
however,  in  favor  of  those  who  have  been  or  shall  be, 
"  for  some  particular  merit,  made  or  declared  free," 
and  also  of  such  "  as  can  prove  that  they  ought  not 
to  be  sold  as  slaves."  This  extraordinary  piece  of 


190  DESPOTISM 

legislation,  reenacted  in  1722,  and  again  in  1735,  was 
modified  by  an  act  of  1740,  as  follows:  "All  negroes, 
Indians,  mulattoes,  and  mustazoes,  (free  Indians  in 
amity  with  this  government,  and  negroes,  mulattoes, 
and  mustazoes  who  are  now  free,  excepted,)  who  now 
are  or  shall  hereafter  be  in  this  province,  and  all  their 
issue  and  offspring,  born  or  to  be  born,  shall  be,  and 
they  are  hereby  declared  to  be  and  remain  for  ever 
hereafter,  absolute  slaves,  and  shall  follow  the  con 
dition  of  the  mother,  and  shall  be  deemed  in  law 
chattels  personal."  In  all  claims  of  freedom,  the 
burden  of  proof  was  to  be  on  the  claimant,  and  it 
was  to  be  always  presumed  that  every  negro,  Indian, 
mulatto,  and  mestizo  is  a  slave,  unless  the  contrary 
appear.  The  word  mestizo  seems  to  be  employed 
(though  sometimes  used  else\vhere  in  a  different 
sense)  to  designate  the  mixed  Indian  blood ;  any  ad 
mixture,  however  slight,  of  negro  or  Indian  blood 
being  included,  according  to  South  Carolina  usage, 
under  the  epithets  mulatto  and  mestizo,  and  carrying 
the  presumption  of  slavery  with  them.  This  act, 
which  forms  the  legal  basis,  such  as  it  is,  of  the 
existing  slave-holding  system  of  South  Carolina,  was 
preceded  and  followed  by  all  the  customary  barbarous 
enactments  of  slave  codes,  which  in  South  Carolina 
were  carried  to  a  degree  of  unusual  ferocity  both  in 
substance  and  expression.  Yet  the  South  Carolina 
assembly  seem  to  have  supposed  themselves  to  be  le 
gislating  within  the  limits  of  the  English  law ;  for  at 
the  very  same  session  at  which  the  slave  act  of  1712 
was  enacted,  the  common  law  of  England  was  de 
clared  to  be  in  force  in  South  Carolina. 

In  North  Carolina  no  colonial  act  seems  ever  to 
have  given  a  legislative  basis  to  the  authority  of  the 
master,  which  rested,  and  still  rests,  upon  mere  cus 
tom,  and  the  old  imaginary  right,  under  the  English 
common  law,  to  reduce  infidels  and  their  descendants 
to  servitude.  So  far  as  relates  to  the  slavery  of  In 
dians,  the  Carolinians  of  both  provinces  had  been  from 


IN    AMERICA.  191 

the  beginning  notorious  sinners.  They  had  an  irre 
sistible  propensity  to  kidnap  the  unhappy  natives, 
and  reduce  them  to  slavery.  Indeed,  one  chief  ground 
of  quarrel  with  the  proprietaries  of  the  province,  grew 
out  of  efforts  made  by  them  to  put  a  stop  to  this 
iniquity. 

Georgia,  it  is  well  known,  was  originally  intended 
to  be  a  free  colony ;  and  during  the  eighteen  years  that 
its  affairs  were  administered  by  the  Trustees  who  had 
planted  it,  slavery  was  strictly  prohibited.  But  the 
vagabonds  from  the  streets  of  London,  (for  such  were 
the  English  settlers  in  Georgia,)  raised  a  loud  outcry 
against  this  prohibition,  ascribing  to  it  the  poverty 
and  slow  progress  of  the  colony,  the  natural  result  of 
their  own  incapacity  and  idleness.  The  famous 
Whitefield  pleaded  with  the  Trustees  in  favor  of 
slavery,  under  the  old  slave-trading  pretence  of  propa 
gating,  by  that  means,  the  Christian  religion.  The 
German  Lutherans  settled  in  Georgia  long  had  scru 
ples  ;  but  they  were  reassured  by  the  heads  of  their 
sect  in  Germany :  "  If  you  take  slaves  in  faith,  and 
with  the  intent  of  conducting  them  to  Christ,  the 
action  will  not  be  a  sin,  but  may  prove  a  benedic 
tion."  Thus,  as  usual,  the  religious  sentiment  and 
its  most  disinterested  votaries  were  made  the  tools  of 
worldly  selfishness,  for  the  enslavement  and  plunder 
of  mankind.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new 
government,  which  succeeded  to  the  authority  of  the 
Trustees,  (1752,)  was,  the  repeal  of  the  prohibition  of 
slavery.  It  was  not,  however,  till  thirteen  years  after 
wards  that  the  legislature  of  Georgia  reinforced  what 
they  supposed  to  be  the  common  law  on  this  subject, 
by  positive  enactment.  In  1765,  they  copied  the 
South  Carolina  act  of  1740 ;  excepting,  however,  from 
the  stern  doom  of  slavery,  not  only  such  negroes, 
tnulattoes,  mestizoes,  and  Indians  as  already  were  free, 
but  such  also  as  might  afterwards  become  free ;  thus 
acknowledging  a  possibility  of  future  manumissions, 
which  the  South  Carolina  statutes  seemed  to  cut  off. 


192 


DESPOTISM 


Such  is  the  legislation,  and  all  the  legislation,  by 
which  it  can  be  pretended  that  slavery,  as  it  now 
exists  in  the  United  States,  acquired  during  the 
colonial  times  the  character  and  the  dignity  of  a 
Legal  Institution.  Was  this  legislation  valid  ?  Could 
it  have  the  effect  to  legalize  slavery  in  America  ? 

As  our  state  legislatures  are  now  restricted  in  their 
powers  by  constitutions,  state  and  federal,  so  the 
colonial  legislatures  were  restricted  in  their  powers 
by  the  law  of  England.  Contrary  to  the  great  prin 
ciples  of  that  law  they  could  not  make  any  acts. 
This  limitation  was  expressly  declared  in  the  colonial 
charters.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  charter  of  Maryland 
provided,  that  all  laws  to  be  enacted  by  the  provincial 
legislature  "  be  consonant  to  reason,  and  be  not  re 
pugnant  or  contrary,  but  (so  far  as  conveniently  may 
be)  agreeable  to  the  laws,  statutes,  customs,  and 
rights  of  this  our  kingdom  of  England."  Similar 
provisions  are  to  be  found  in  the  charters  of  Virginia, 
Carolina,  and  Georgia.  It  is  true,  that  these  charters, 
except  that  of  Maryland,  were  surrendered  or  taken 
away,  previous  to  the  Revolution.  But  this  proceed 
ing,  so  far  from  extending  the  authority  of  the 
colonial  legislatures,  operated  the  other  way;  con 
formity  to  the  law  of  England  being  still  more  strictly 
demanded  in  the  royal  than  in  the  chartered  provinces. 
The  very  commissions  of  the  governors,  under  the 
authority  of  which  alone  the  legislative  assemblies 
of  the  crown  (or  unchartered)  colonies  had  any  ex 
istence,  expressly  restricted  the  enactments  of  those 
assemblies  to  such  acts  as  "  were  not  repugnant,  but 
as  near  as  may  be  agreeable,  to  the  laws  and  statutes 
of  the  kingdom  of  England."  This  doctrine  of  the 
restricted  powers  of  the  colonial  legislatures  was 
perfectly  well  established,  and  it  has  been  repeatedly 
recognized  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  as  well  as  by  the  state  courts.  No  lawyer 
would  pretend  that  any  colonial  legislature  had  pow 
er,  for  instance,  to  abolish  trial  by  jury.  The  limits 
of  colonial  legislative  authority  may  be  well  exem- 


IN    AMERICA..  193 

plified  by  a  transaction  in  South  Carolina.  That 
province  being  violently  distracted  by  disputes  be 
tween  churchmen  and  dissenters,  in  1704  the  church 
men,  happening  to  have  a  majority  of  one  in  the 
assembly,  passed  an  act,  by  the  help  of  a  good  quan 
tity  of  good  liquor,  that  none  but  churchmen  should 
vote.  This  act  was  approved  by  the  proprietaries; 
and  as  the  charter  of  Carolina  reserved  no  negative 
to  the  crown,  it  thus  obtained  the  form  of  law.  But 
the  dissenters,  indignant  at  this  outrage,  sent  an  agent 
to  England,  on  whose  petition  the  House  of  Lords, 
swayed  by  the  eloquence  of  Somers,  pronounced  this 
disfranchising  act  unreasonable  and  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  England,  of  which,  since  the  revolution  of 
1789,  the  toleration  of  all  regular  Protestant  sects  had 
become  an  established  principle;  and  Queen  Anne, 
by  the  advice  of  the  attorney  and  solicitor-general, 
issued  a  proclamation  declaring  the  obnoxious  act 
void,  because  it  violated  that  clause  in  the  charter 
which  required  the  laws  of  the  colony  not  to  contra 
dict  those  of  England. 

If  the  colonial  legislatures  could  not  abolish  trial 
by  jury  ;  if,  after  the  toleration  of  all  Protestant  sects 
had  become  the  law  of  England,  they  had  no  power 
to  enact  laws  disfranchising  any  Protestant — had  they 
any  legal  power  to  establish  slavery  ? 

Certainly  not,  if  slavery  was  contrary  to  the  law  of 
England.  And  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  law  of 
England  we  now  proceed  to  show. 

And  here  again,  as  in  the  whole  of  this  discussion, 
it  becomes  necessary  clearly  to  distinguish  between 
law  and  practice;  between  that  which  might  legally 
have  been  done,  and  that  which  actually  was  done 
without  law,  or  against  it.  It  has  already  been  men 
tioned,  that  while  the  last  remnants  of  the  old  system 
of  villeinage  were  disappearing,  the  nascent  maritime 
enterprise  of  England  had  led  to  the  occasional  im 
portation  of  the  pagan  natives  of  other  countries, 
who  were  claimed  and  held  as  slaves.  On  the  trial 
of  the  impeachment  against  the  judges  of  the  Star 
17 


194  DESPOTISM 

Chamber,  ordered  by  the  Long  Parliament  in  1640, 
and  reported  in  Rushworth's  Collections,  a  case  was 
cited,  said  to  have  occurred  in  the  eleventh  year  of 
Elizabeth,  (1569,)  in  which  "one  Cartwright  brought 
a  slave  from  Russia,  and  would  scourge  him ;  for 
which  he  was  questioned,  and  it  was  resolved  that 
England  was  too  pure  an  air  for  a  slave  to  breathe- 
in."  But  the  first  recorded  English  case,  in  which 
the  legality  of  holding  men  in  slavery  came  in  ques 
tion,  was  that  of  Butts  v.  Penny,  decided  in  1677,  in 
the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  (2  Levintz,  251 ;  3  Keble, 
785.)  Though  in  form  an  action  of  trover,  brought 
in  London,  to  recover  damages  for  the  taking  away 
of  ten  negroes,  this  case  in  fact  related  to  a 
transaction  between  the  parties  in  India,  (see  Har- 
grave's  statement  on  the  subject,  in  his  published 
argument  in  the  case  of  Somerset;)  and  it  being 
found  by  a  special  verdict  "that  the  negroes  were 
infidels  and  subjects  of  an  infidel  prince,  and  are 
usually  bought  and  sold  in  India  as  merchandise," 
and  that  the  plaintiff  bought  these,  and  was  in  pos 
session  of  them  till  the  defendant  took  them,  the 
court  held  "that being  usually  bought  and  sold  among 
merchants  as  merchandise,  there  might  be  a  property 
in  them  sufficient  to  maintain  trover."  And  the  same 
doctrine  appears  also  to  have  been  held  in  the  Common 
Pleas  in  1694,  in  the  case  of  Gilly  v.  Clive,  (1  Lord 
Raymond,  147.)  But  in  1705,  in  the  case  of  Smith 
v.  Gould,  (Salkeld,  666;  2  Lord  Raymond,  1774,) 
which  was  also  an  action  of  trover  for  a  negro,  the 
case  of  Butts  v.  Penny  was  expressly  overruled.  "  The 
common  law,"  said  Lord  Holt,  "  takes  no  notice  of 
negroes  being  different  from  other  men.  By  the  com 
mon  law,  no  man  can  have  a  property  in  another  but 
in  special  cases,  as  in  a  villein,  but  even  in  him  not  to 
kill  him;  so  in  captives  taken  in  war,  but  the  taker 
cannot  kill  them,  but  may  sell  them  to  ransom  them. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  slave  by  the  law  of  Eng- 

dr 

Nor  was  this  the  only  occasion  upon  which  Lord 


IN    AMERICA.  195 

Holt,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  names  in  English 
jurisprudence,  vindicated  this  principle  of  the  com 
mon  law.  In  the  case  of  Smith  v.  Brown  Sf  Cooper, 
(Holt,  495;  Salkeld,  666,)  the  court  over  which  he 
presided  refused  to  sustain  an  action  of  assumpsit  to 
recover  the  price  of  a  slave,  "  because,"  said  Lord 
Holt,  "  as  soon  as  a  negro  comes  into  England  he  is 
free.  One  may  be  a  villein  in  England,  but  not  a 
slave."  It  was  indeed  suggested  that  the  decision 
might  have  been  different,  had  the  sale  been  stated 
in  the  declaration  to  have  be«i  made  in  Virginia, 
with  an  averment  that,  by  the  laws  of  that  country, 
negroes  were  saleable, — "  for  the  laws  of  England," 
said  Lord  Holt,  "  do  not  extend  to  Virginia :  being'  a 
conquered  country,  their  law  is  what  the  king  pleases, 
and  we  cannot  take  notice  of  it  but  as  set  forth." 
This,  however,  was  a  view  of  the  relation  of  the 
mother  country  to  the  colonies,  and  of  the  rights  of 
the  inhabitants,  the  correctness  of  which  (though  it 
was  held  down  to  Lord  Holt's  time  by  the  English 
lawyers  generally)  was  never  admitted  by  the  col 
onists  themselves,  and  which,  in  the  course  of  the 
next  half  century,  as  to  all  the  colonies  originally 
planted  by  English  emigrants,  was,  by  the  general 
consent  of  the  English  bench  and  bar,  given  up  as 
untenable.  Nor  would  even  the  existence  in  the  crown 
of  such  an  arbitrary  power  of  colonial  legislation 
have  afforded  any  legislative  basis  for  slavery  to  stand 
upon  ;  for,  so  far  from  any  authority  having  been 
given  by  the  crown  to  the  colonial  legislatures  to 
legalize  slavery,  it  had  been  expressly  provided  in  all 
the  American  charters,  and  in  all  the  instructions  to 
the  royal  governors,  that  no  local  laws  were  to  be 
enacted  repugnant  to  those  of  England  ;  so  that  the 
question  of  the  legality  of  slavery  in  the  colonies 
would  still  come  back  to  the  question  of  its  repug 
nancy  to  English  jurisprudence. 

Yet  notwithstanding  the  two  express  decisions  above 
cited  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  that  negro  slavery 
was  a  thing  unknown  to  the  English  law,  which 


196  DESPOTISM 

recognized  no  distinction  between  negroes  and  other 
men,  and  which  had  never  admitted  slavery  except 
in  the  peculiar  and  now  extinct  form  of  villeinage, 
negroes  still  continued,  as  before,  to  be  brought  to 
England,  and  there  to  be  held  and  treated  as  slaves — 
a  practice  which,  with  the  growth  of  the  African 
slave  trade  and  the  increase  of  slaves  in  the  colonies, 
became,  during  the  first  half  of  the  18th  century, 
more  and  more  frequent. 

The  negroes  thus  imported  were  too  ignorant  and 
too  helpless  to  vindicate  their  own  rights ;  nor  was 
there  any  thing  in  the  public  sentiment  of  that  gross 
age,  of  which  Mammon  was  the  peculiar  god,  to 
check  the  growth  of  this  new  system  of  slavery. 
Some  little  annoyance  seems  indeed  to  have  been 
occasionally  given  to  the  slave-holders,  by  claims  of 
freedom  set  up  on  the  ground  of  baptism,  or  on  the 
common  law  principle  of  the  right  of  all  men  to 
liberty;  but  these  claims  were  met,  and  to  a  great 
extent  silenced,  by  a  legal  opinion  obtained  in  1729, 
from  Sir  Philip  Yorke  and  Charles  Talbot,  (after 
wards  Lord  Talbot,)  in  which  "  they  pledged  them 
selves  to  the  merchants  of  London  to  save  them 
harmless  from  all  inconvenience  "  growing  out  of  such 
claims ; — an  ex  parte  opinion  to  which  a  judicial  sanc 
tion  seemed  to  be  given  by  Yorke,  then  become  Lord 
Hardwicke,  and  Chancellor,  by  his  decision  in  1749, 
in  the  case  of  Pearne  v.  Lisle,  (Ambler,  Reports,  75.) 
In  that  case  an  application  was  made  for  a  writ  of 
ne  exeat  regno,  a  prohibition,  that  is,  to  Lisle  to  leave 
the  kingdom,  till  he  had  first  paid  to  the  plaintiff  a 
certain  stipulated  rent,  due  for  certain  negroes  hired 
and  held  as  slaves  in  the  island  of  Antigua,  and  had 
also  returned  the  negroes;  which  application  Hard 
wicke  declined  to  grant,  on  the  ground  that  the  plain 
tiff  had  a  sufficient  remedy  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
law.  "I  have  no  doubt,"  he  said,  "that  trover  will 
lie  for  a  negro  slave ;  it  is  as  much  property  as  any 
other  thing.  The  case  in  Salkeld,  66(3,  (Smith  v. 
Gould,)  was  determined  on  the  want  of  a  proper  de- 


IN    AMERICA.  197 

scription.  It  was  trover  pro  uno  JEthiope  vocat.  negro, 
(for  one  Ethiopian  called  a  negro,)  without  saying 
^lave.  The  being  negro  did  not  necessarily  imply 
slave."  [Here  we  have  a  specimen  of  the  cool  assur 
ance  of  eminent  lawyers  in  explaining  away  cases 
which  they  do  not  venture  to  overrule,  since  it  is 
abundantly  apparent  from  the  report  of  the  case  in 
Salkeld,  and  still  more  so  from  that  in  Lord  Raymond, 
that  so  far  from  the  decision  having  been  grounded 
on  this  alleged  defect  in  description,  its  very  basis  was 
the  fact  that  the  negro  was  claimed  as  a  slave.  Indeed, 
Lord  Holt  stated  in  so  many  words,  as  the  reason  of 
the  decision,  that  "  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  slave  by 
the  law  of  England."]  "  The  reason  said  at  the  bar," 
so  Lord  Hardwicke  proceeded,  "  to  have  been  given 
by  Chief  Justice  Holt  as  the  cause  of  his  doubt," 
[another  specimen  of  bold  judicial  misrepresentation, 
since  it  was  no  doubt  of  Lord  Holt's,  but  a  solemn 
decision  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,]  "viz.,  that 
the  moment  that  a  slave  sets  his  foot  in  England  he 
becomes  free,"  [this  reason  was  not  given  in  the  case 
of  Smith  v.  Gould,  but  in  the  other  case  of  Smith  v. 
Brown  Sf  Cooper,  which  is  found  indeed  on  the  same 
page  in  Salkeld,]  "has  no  weight  with  it,  nor  can  any 
reason  be  found  why  they  should  not  be  equally  so 
when  they  set  foot  in  Jamaica,  or  any  other  English 
plantation.  All  our  colonies  are  subject  to  the  laws 
of  England,  although,  to  some  purposes,  they  have 
laws  of  their  own."  [On  this  point  doubtless  Hard 
wicke  had  the  advantage  of  Holt;  for  the  opinions  of 
the  English  lawyers,  since  the  English  revolution,  had 
gradually  been  brought  into  coincidence  with  that  of 
the  colonists,  who  had  all  along  claimed  that  the 
common  law  was  as  much  in  force  in  the  colonies  as 
in  England.]  "  There  was  once  a  doubt,"  continued 
the  judge,  "  whether,  if  they  were  christened,  they 
would  not  become  free  by  that  act ;  and  there  were 
precautions  taken  in  the  colonies  to  prevent  them 
from  becoming  baptized,  till  the  opinion  of  Lord 
Talbot  and  myself,  then  attorney  and  solicitor-general, 
17* 


198  DESPOTISM 

was  taken  on  that  point.  We  were  both  of  opinion 
that  it  did  not  at  all  alter  their  state."  [The  opinion 
indeed  went  much  further,  but  the  judge  perhaps  did 
not  think  it  decorous  to  mention  the  pledge  which  he 
had  given  to  the  London  slave-holders  to  save  them 
harmless  from  all  claims  of  freedom.]  "  There  were 
formerly  villeins  or  slaves  in  England,  and  these  of 
two  sorts,  regardant  and  in  gross;  and  although  tenures 
are  taken  away,  there  are  no  laws  that  have  destroyed 
servitude  absolutely.  Trover  might  have  been  brought 
for  a  villein.  If  a  man  were  to  come  into  a  court  of 
record  and  confess  himself  villein  to  another,  (which 
was  one  way  of  being  a  villein,)  what  the  conse 
quence  would  be  I  would  not  say,  but  there  is  no  law 
to  abolish  it  at  this  time."  Such  is  the  reasoning, 
and  all  the  reasoning,  upon  which  Lord  Hardwicke, 
sitting  as  an  equity  judge,  undertook  to  overturn  two 
solemn  decisions  of  the  King's  Bench  on  a  point  of 
common  law.  Villeinage,  though  it  had  died  away 
and  disappeared,  had  not  been  formally  abolished ; 
and  therefore  negro  slavery,  a  relation  wholly  different 
in  its  origin  and  incidents,  agreeing  with  villeinage 
only  in  the  fact  of  involving  personal  servitude — a 
relation  introduced  within  two  or  three  centuries, 
quite  within  the  time  of  legal  memory,  and  without 
any  basis  or  foundation,  except  the  convenience  and 
gain  of  certain  London  merchants — this  relation,  by 
some  unexplained  transfusion,  had  inherited  all  the 
legal  character  of  villeinage !  There  was  no  law  to 
prevent  a  man  from  going  into  court  and  confessing 
himself  the  villein  of  another,  and  therefore — there  was 
no  law  to  prevent  London  merchants  from  holding 
negroes  in  slavery  against  their  will! 

The  personal  character  of  a  judge  will  often  throw 
no  little  light  upon  his  judicial  opinions,  especially 
those  in  which  general  principles  are  involved. 
Hardwicke,  we  are  told  by  Lord  Campbell,  in  his 
Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  was  "  the  most  consummate 
judge  who  ever  sat  in  the  Court  of  Chancery,"  the 
"  greatest  contributor  to  the  English  equity  code," — 


IN    AMERICA.  199 

not  any  very  high  commendation,  perhaps,  with  those 
who  have  had  much  experience  of  chancery  suits. 
But  the  character  of  a  "consummate  judge"  has 
too  often  been  obtained  by  a  ready  ingenuity  in  giving 
plausible  reasons  to  sustain  power  against  right,  or 
in  defect  of  plausible  reason,  by  a  bold  effrontery  in 
trampling  under  foot  the  weak  and  helpless,  for  the 
benefit  and  convenience  of  the  rich  and  powerful. 
That  there  was  nothing  in  Lord  Hardwicke's  personal 
character  to  deter  him  from  such  a  course,  but  much 
to  prompt  him  to  it,  Lord  Campbell  himself  shall  be 
our  witness.  "  His  career  was  not  checkered  by  any 
youthful  indiscretions  or  generous  errors.  He  ever  had 
a  keen  and  steady  eye  to  his  own  advantage,  as  well 
as  to  the  public  good.  [Is  there  not  a  little  irony  in 
this  last  clause  ?]  Amid  the  aristocratic  connections 
which  he  formed,  he  forgot  the  companions  of  his 
youth,  and  his  regard  for  the  middle  classes  of  society, 
from  which  he  sprang,  cooled  down  to  indifference. 
He  became  jealous  of  all  who  could  be  his  rivals  for 
power,  and  he  contracted  a  certain  degree  of  selfish 
ness  and  hardness  of  character  which  excited  much 
envy  [?]  and  ill  will  amid  the  flatteries  which  sur 
rounded  him."  His  first  patron,  for  whom  he  assidu 
ously  worked,  and  by  whose  partial  favor  he  was 
brought  into  notice,  was  the  Earl  of  Macclesfield, 
that  "trafficker  in  judicial  robes,  and  robber  of  widows 
and  orphans,"  who  was  afterwards  impeached  and 
found  guilty  of  corruption.  He  then  attached  him 
self  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who,  in  a  long  political 
career,  endeavored  to  make  up  for  personal  imbecility 
by  the  freest  use  of  patronage  and  money.  "  The 
best  thing  that  can  be  remembered  of  the  chancellor," 
says  Horace  Walpole,  "  is  his  fidelity  to  his  patron ; 
for  let  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  betray  whom  he  would, 
the  chancellor  always  stuck  to  him  in  his  perfidy,  and 
was  only  not  false  to  the  falsest  of  mankind  ! "  Such 
was  precisely  the  sort  of  "consummate  judge"  from 
whom  might  have  been  anticipated  an  attempt  to 
give  to  the  enslavement  of  man  a  character  of  legality. 


200  DESPOTISM 

What  sympathy  for  the  mere  laborers  could  be  felt 
by  one  who,  engrossed  by  his  aristocratic  connections, 
had  become  coldly  indifferent  even  to  the  middle 
classes,  from  whence  he  sprang  ? 

Bat  in  spite  of  the  glosses  of  Lord  Hardwicke,  and 
the  increasing  number  of  slaves  in  England,  there 
were  still  those  who  felt  and  those  who  held  that 
Lord  Holt's  version  of  the  common  law  was  the  true 
one.  An  attempt  having  been  made  in  1762,  in  the 
case  of  Shanley  v.  Hervey,  (3  Eden's  Reports,  126,)  be 
fore  Lord  Hardwicke's  successor  as  chancellor,  Lord 
Northington,  characterized  by  Lord  Eldon  as  "  a  great 
lawyer,  and  very  firm  in  delivering  his  opinions," 
to  appropriate  to  the  use  of  a  pretended  master  a  gift 
or  legacy  to  a  negro,  he  indignantly  dismissed  the 
bill  with  the  exclamation — "  As  soon  as  a  man  puts 
foot  on  English  ground  he  is  free.  A  negro  may 
maintain  an  action  against  his  master  for  ill  usage, 
and  may  have  a  habeas  corpus  if  restrained  of  his 
liberty."  The  famous  Granville  Sharpe  embraced 
this  opinion  with  so  much  enthusiasm  as  in  fact  to 
devote  his  life  to  its  vindication.  Many  cases,  through 
his  agency,  were  brought  before  the  courts;  and 
though  often  foiled,  he  succeeded  at  last  in  obtaining 
for  this  great  question  a  solemn  rehearing  and  a  final 
decision. 

James  Somerset,  an  African  by  birth,  carried  to 
Virginia  as  a  slave,  and  purchased  there  by  James 
Stewart,  had  been  brought  from  Virginia  to  England, 
where  he  refused  to  serve  any  longer,  in  consequence 
of  which  Stewart  seized  him,  and  put  him  on  board  a 
ship  to  be  sent  to  Jamaica.  Being  taken  before 
Lord  Mansfield  (1771)  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and 
these  facts  appearing  on  the  return,  the  question  was 
referred  to  the  fall  Court  of  King's  Bench,  before  which 
it  was  argued  at  different  times  by  five  lawyers  re 
tained  by  Sharpe,  while  two  of  the  most  eminent 
counsel  of  the  day  (Wallace  and  Dunning)  appeared 
on  the  other  side. 

Mansfield  was  endowed  with  a  warmth  of  senti- 


IN    AMERICA.  201 

ment,  a  sympathy  with  humanity,  and  a  philosophical 
spirit,  which,  in  giving  a  vitality  to  his  legal  learning 
and  abilities,  has  elevated  hirn  high  over  the  heads 
of  so  many  other  "consummate  lawyers."  Yet  he 
was  not  celebrated  either  for  intrepidity  of  spirit,  or 
for  any  special  enthusiasm  in  behalf  of  personal  liber 
ty.  Here  was  an  opportunity  for  the  establishment 
of  a  great  principle  ;  but  an  opportunity  which  he  did 
not  court,  and  from  which  indeed  he  strove  to  escape. 
He  was  not  insensible  to  the  wealth  and  social  stand 
ing  of  the  parties  interested  as  slave-holders,  and  he 
attempted  to  get  rid  of  this  case,  as  he  had  done  of 
several  similar  ones,  by  urging  the  settlement  of  it  by 
an  agreement  between  the  parties.  The  decision 
seems  indeed  to  have  been  once  or  twice  postponed, 
to  give  Stewart  an  opportunity  to  act  upon  the  hint, 
that  if  he  would  manumit  Somerset  the  case  might 
be  ended  in  that  way,  without  any  formal  decision, 
which  Mansfield  openly  expressed  his  anxiety  to  avoid. 
If  the  decision  went  against  the  master,  it  would 
overturn  the  established  practice  and  prevailing  ideas 
of  the  last  fifty  years,  backed  by  the  legal  opinion  of 
"  two  of  the  greatest  men  " — such  were  the  terms  in 
which  Lord  Mansfield  referred  to  Yorke  and  Talbot— 
"  of  this  or  any  other  time."*  But  on  the  other  hand 
was  the  extreme  difficulty  of  adopting  the  relation  of 
slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  colonies,  without  adopting 
it  in  all  its  consequences,  many  of  which  were  "  abso 
lutely  contrary  to  the  municipal  law  of  England." 
"  The  setting  fourteen  or  fifteen  thousand  men  " — for 
that  had  been  stated  by  the  counsel  for  the  claimant 
as  the  estimated  number  of  negro  slaves  in  England 
— "  at  once  loose  by  a  solemn  opinion  "  was  "  very 
disagreeable  in  the  effects  it  threatened."  "  Fifty 
pounds" — the  estimate  of  Stewart's  counsel — "may 

*  Yet  in  the  course  of  the  argument,  he  had  spoken  of  their  opin 
ion  above  referred  to  with  no  great  respect,  as  a  case  "  upon  &  pe 
tition  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Hall,  after  dinner,  therefore  probably  might 
not  be  taken  with  much  accuracy,  as  he  believed  was  not  unusual 
at  that  hour."  See  Loff 's  Reports. 


202  DESPOTISM 

not  be  a  high  price.  Then  a  loss  follows  to  the  pro 
prietors  of  about  <£700,000  sterling.  How  would  the 
law  stand  in  respect  of  their  settlement,  their  wages  ? 
How  many  actions  for  any  slight  coercion  by  the 
master  ?  " 

But  though  these  prudential  considerations  made 
the  tirnid  Mansfield  anxious  to  escape  a  formal  judg 
ment,  they  did  not  alter  his  opinion  of  the  law. 
"  We  cannot,  in  any  of  these  points,  direct  the  law ; 
the  law  must  direct  us."  "  If  the  parties  will  have 
judgment,  fiatjusticia  mat  cesium — let  justice  be  done 
whatever  be  the  consequence."  At  the  same  time  he 
suggested,  as  a  consolation  to  the  slave-holders,  "  an 
application  to  parliament,  if  the  merchants  think  the 
question  of  great  commercial  concern,"  as  "  the  best, 
arid  perhaps  only,  method  of  settling  the  question  for 
the  future," — a  suggestion,  however,  upon  which,  in 
the  existing  state  of  public  sentiment,  the  London 
slave-holders  did  not  venture  to  act. 

At  last,  after  several  postponements,  as  Stewart 
declined  to  terminate  the  case  by  manumitting  Somer 
set,  Mansfield  proceeded  to  render  judgment;  which 
he  did  very  briefly ;  and  yet,  as  his  peculiar  manner 
was,  in  terms  sufficiently  comprehensive  not  only  to 
decide  the  case  before  him,  but  to  establish  a  principle 
for  the  decision  of  other  cases. 

"  We  pay  all  due  attention,"  he  said,  "  to  the  opin 
ion  of  Sir  Philip  Yorke  and  Lord  Talbot,  whereby 
they  pledged  themselves  to  the  British  planters  for  all 
the  legal  consequences  of  slaves  coming  over  to  this 
kingdom,  or  being  baptized,  recognized  by  Lord 
Hardwicke,  sitting  as  chancellor,"  in  the  case  of 
Pearne  v.  Lisle.  "  The  only  question  before  us  is, 
whether  the  cause  on  the  return  is  sufficient.  If  it  is, 
the  negro  must  be  remanded  ;  if  it  is  not,  he  must  be 
discharged.  The  return  states  that  the  slave  departed 
and  refused  to  serve,  whereupon  he  was  seized  to  be 
sold  abroad.  So  high  an  act  of  dominion  must  be 
recognized  by  the  law  of  the  country  where  it  is  used. 
The  power  of  a  master  over  his  slave  has  been  exceed- 


IN    AMERICA.  203 

ingly  different  in  different  countries.  The  state  of 
slavery  is  of  such  a  nature,  that  it  is  incapable  of  being- 
introduced  on  any  reasons,  moral  or  political,  but  only 
by  positive  law,  which  preserves  its  force  long  after  the 
reasons,  occasions,  and  time  itself  from  whence  it  was 
created,  is  erased  from  memory.  It  is  so  odious  that 
nothing  can  be  suffered  to  support  it  but  positive  law. 
Whatever  inconveniences,  therefore,  may  follow  from 
the  decision,  I  cannot  say  this  case  is  allowed  or  ap 
proved  by  the  law  of  England,  and  therefore  the  black 
must  be  discharged." 

It  is  very  true  that  this  decision  is  limited  in  its 
terms  to  the  case  of  persons  claimed  as  slaves  within 
the  realm  of  England,  that  being  the  particular  case 
before  the  court.  It  is  also  true  that  the  counsel  for 
Somerset,  conscious  of  the  pecuniary  influence  weigh 
ing  against  their  client,  and  anxious  to  limit  that 
influence  as  much  as  possible,  were  very  careful  not 
to  question  the  legality  of  slavery  in  the  colonies. 
But  as  all  the  colonial  assemblies  were  specially  re 
stricted,  either  by  charter  or  the  royal  commissions 
under  which  they  met  and  legislated,  to  the  enactment 
of  laws  not  repugnant  to  those  of  England,  how 
could  those  assemblies  be  competent  to  legalize  a 
condition,  many  of  the  consequences  of  which  were 
pronounced  by  Lord  Mansfield  "absolutely  contrary'* 
to  English  law? — and  did  it  not  follow,  as  one  of  the 
"inconveniences"  of  that  decision,  as  Hardwicke  had 
suggested  it  would,  that  slavery,  illegal  in  England, 
was  also  illegal  in  the  English  colonies? 

To  evade  this  conclusion,  the  omnipotence  of  par 
liament  was  invoked,  as  having,  at  least  by  way  of 
inference  and  recognition,  legalized  slavery  in  Amer 
ica  ;  for  which  purpose  several  acts  were  cited  re 
lating  to  the  African  trade,  particularly  that  of  9  and 
10  Wil.  III.  ch.  26;  also  the  act  of  1732,  for  the 
speedy  recovery  of  debts  in  the  colonies.  The  first 
of  these  acts  plainly  speaks  of  negroes  as  a  species 
of  merchandise,  the  export  of  which  from  the  African 
coast  in  British  ships  was  particularly  favored,  by 


204  DESPOTISM 

their  exemption  from  a  duty  of  ten  per  cent.,  imposed, 
for  the  sustentation  of  the  West  African  forts,  on  all 
exports  from  that  coast,  "negroes  excepted."  The 
great  object  of  the  other  act  was,  to  make  real  estate 
in  the  colonies  liable  to  be  levied  upon  for  debts  the 
same  with  personal  property;  and  as  some  of  the 
colonies,  to  protect  the  planters  against  their  creditors, 
had  declared  negroes  to  be  real  estate,  such  negroes 
too  were  made  by  this  act  seizable  for  debt  along 
with  the  lands  to  which  they  were  attached.  But  so 
great  an  innovation  upon  the  common  law  as  the 
legalization  of  negro  slavery,  is  not  to  be  sustained  by 
a  mere  statute  implication ;  especially  when  the  pro 
visions  relied  upon  do  not  necessarily  imply  any  thing 
more  than  what  the  long-established  common  law  had 
fully  recognized.  The  importation  into  the  colonies, 
and  the  sale  there,  of  servants,  to  be  held  for  a  limited 
period,  to  be  esteemed  during  that  period  Ihe  goods 
and  chattels  of  the  purchaser,  to  be  sold  at  his  pleas 
ure,  and  liable  to  be  seized  for  his  debts,  was  un 
doubtedly  permitted  by  the  law  of  England.  Such 
servants  were  regularly  imported  from  England, 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  Germany,  in  numbers  at  least 
equal  to  the  negroes ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  more 
than  this  necessarily  implied  in  the  acts  above  cited. 
There  is  nothing  to  show  that  parliament  intended  to 
place  Africans  in  this  respect  on  a  different  ground 
from  other  men.  Such,  indeed,  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  view  taken  of  these  acts  by  Lord  Mansfield. 
The  exportation  of  negroes  was  not  limited  to  Amer 
ica.  In  the  act  above  referred  to  for  regulating  the 
African  trade,  England  was  mentioned  in  precisely 
the  same  terms  as  the  colonies,  as  one  of  the  places 
to  which  African  merchandise,  including  negroes, 
might  be  brought;  and  the  holding  of  negroes  in 
slavery,  so  far  as  that  act  goes,  was  just  as  much 
authorized  by  it  in  the  one  country  as  in  the  other. 
But  though  these  statutes  were  cited  in  Somerset's 
case,  Lord  Mansfield  allowed  them  no  weight.  And  in 
the  case  of  Forbes  v.  Cochrane,  (2  Barnwell  &  Cress- 


IN    AMERICA.  205 

well,  443,)  decided  in  1824  in  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  Chief  Justice  Best  expressly  stated  "that  he 
did  not  feel  himself  fettered  by  any  thing  expressed 
in  either  of  these  acts,  [the  acts,  that  is,  in  relation 
to  the  trade  with  Africa,]  in  pronouncing  the  same 
opinion  on  the  rights  growing  out  of  slavery  as  if  they 
had  never  passed." 

There  is  indeed  a  still  further  distinction  as  to  the 
case  of  those  held  as  slaves  in  the  colonies,  apt  to  be 
overlooked  in  these  discussions,  but  which  cannot  be 
disregarded,  at  least  by  those  who  coincide  with 
Lords  Camden  and  Chatham  and  the  Continental 
Congresses  of  1765  and  1774,  in  their  views  of  colo 
nial  and  metropolitan  relations.  Whatever  the  con 
dition  might  legally  have  been  of  those  unfortunate 
aliens  purchased  in  Africa  as  slaves,  and  brought  to 
America  and  sold  to  the  planters;  suppose  even  that 
it  might  have  been  consonant  to  English  law  to  hold 
them  as  servants  for  life,  as  Blackstone  seems  to  have 
imagined ;  yet  the  case  was  very  different  as  to  their 
children  born  in  the  colonies,  who  were  in  every 
respect,  according  to  the  views  above  stated,  natural- 
born  subjects  of  the  King  of  England,  and  entitled  to 
all  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  from  which  not  even 
parliament  itself,  and  much  less  the  colonial  legisla 
tures,  had  any  power  to  exclude  them.  Such  was 
the  ground  taken  by  James  Otis,  in  his  famous 
pamphlet  on  Colonial  Rights^  published  (1764)  in 
anticipation  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  justly  regarded 
as  the  first  trumpet  blast  of  the  American  Revolution* 
in  which  pamphlet  he  laid  it  down  as  a  fundamental 
proposition,  the  basis  of  all  his  reasoning,  that  all  the 
colonists,  whether  "  black  or  white,"  born  in  America, 
were  free  born  British  subjects,  entitled  to  all  the 
essential  rights  of  such. 

The  decision  in  Somerset's  case  is  sometimes 
spoken  of,  even  by  judges  on  the  bench,  as  having 
changed  the  law  of  England.  But  such  a  view  of  it 
is  entirely  false.  Judgments  of  courts  do  not  change 
the  law.  They  are  not  the  law,  but  only  evidence  of 
18 


206  DESPOTISM 

the  law.  The  Somerset  case  did  not  make  nor  alter 
the  law  of  England  ;  it  only  freed  it  from  the  false 
glosses  with  which  ignorance,  avarice,  violence,  and  the 
practice  of  two  or  three  hundred  years  had  obscured 
it.  It  did  but  repeat,  and  now,  from  the  altered  state 
of  the  public  sentiment,  in  a  more  authoritative 
and  effectual  tone,  the  very  declaration  which  Lord 
Holt,  three  quarters  of  a  century  before,  had  then 
ineffectually  made, — that  the  law  of  England  did  not 
allow  the  reducing  men  to  slavery,  and  did  not  regard 
negroes  as  any  way  different,  in  this  respect,  from 
other  men.  Such  being  the  fact,  there  surely  existed 
no  power  in  any  colonial  assembly,  restricted  as  all 
those  assemblies  were  to  the  enactment  of  Jaws  "  not 
repugnant  to  those  of  England,"  to  legalize  a  con 
dition  many  of  the  consequences  of  which  were,  in 
the  words  of  Lord  Mansfield,  "  absolutely  contrary"  to 
English  law. 

But  it  is  not  by  the  mere  declaration  of  what  the 
law  is — especially  where  there  is  no  spirit  or  dispo 
sition  on  the  part  of  those  in  authority  to  enforce  or 
even  to  recognize  it — that  wrong  is  ever  to  be  rectified ; 
nor  has  it  been  in  America  alone  that  courts  and  law 
yers  have  trampled  law  as  well  as  justice  under  foot, 
in  their  zeal  to  gain  the  favor  and  to  conform  to  the 
wishes  of  those  possessed  of  wealth  and  of  social  and 
political  influence.  The  American  Declaration  of 
Independence,  which  took  place  within  a  little  more 
than  four  years  after  the  decision  in  Somerset's  case, 
Removed  the  colonies,  now  become  the  United  State?, 
from  all  further  control  by  English  tribunals  or  Eng 
lish  authority ;  but  there  were  several  other  colonial 
dependencies  of  the  British  empire,  in  which,  for 
more  than  sixty  years  after  that  decision,  negro  slavery 
continued  in  full  energy,  too  strong,  too  rampant,  for 
any  English  judge  to  dare  to  apply  to  it  the  principle 
of  the  Somerset  case ;  since  here  it  was  not  a  ques 
tion  of  ,£700,000  and  fourteen  thousand  negroes,  but 
of  a  sum  and  a  number  near  a  hundred  times  as 
great ;  the  difficulty  of  redressing  wrongs  unfortunate- 


IN     AMERICA.  207 

ly  increasing  in  something  like  geometrical  proportion 
to  the  number  of  those  whom  they  crush.  Even  such 
a  judge  as  Chief  Justice  Best,  while  giving  such  au 
thority  to  the  case  of  Somerset  as  to  hold,  (in  Forbes 
v.  Cochrane,  above  referred  to,)  that  slaves  flying  from 
a  Spanish  colony,  and  taking  refuge  on  board  a 
British  ship  on  the  high  seas,  thereby  became  free, 
was  very  careful  to  add,  "  There  may  possibly  be  a 
distinction  between  the  situation  of  these  persons,  and 
that  of  slaves  coming  from  our  own  islands,  for  we 
have  unfortunately  recognized  the  existence  of  slavery 
there,  though  we  have  never  recognized  it  in  our  own 
country."  Indeed,  he  specially  desired  that  nothing 
he  might  say  in  that  case  [and  he  said  several  very 
fine  things]  "  might  be  considered  as  trenching  on  the 
local  rights  of  the  West  India  proprietors  to  the 
services  of  their  slaves  in  that  country." 

Nor  when,  at  last,  the  question  of  the  legality  of 
slavery  in  the  colonies  was  distinctly  raised  before  an 
English  court,  (unfortunately  not  a  court  of  common 
law,)  did  the  slave-holders  fail  to  find,  in  the  person 
of  Lord  Stowell,  another  "  consummate  judge,"  not 
less  ready  than  Lord  Hardwicke  had  been,  in  his  day, 
to  give  to  a  cruel  and  oppressive  custom  all  the 
character  and  attributes  of  a  solemn  legislative  au 
thority.  The  case  of  The  Slave  Grace,  (2  Haggard's 
Admiralty  Reports,  106,)  decided  in  1827,  is  indeed 
most  instructive,  as  showing  to  what  extent  your 
"consummate  lawyer"  will  go,  on  behalf  of  the 
interests,  or  what  he  esteems  such,  of  property  and 
commerce,  no  matter  at  what  expense  of  human 
agony,  and  disregard  of  the  plainest  principles  of 
justice.  Set  aside  the  state  of  Mississippi,  under  the 
chief  justiceship  of  the  notorious  Sharkey,  and  the 
circuits  of  Judges  Grier  and  Curtis,  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to 
match  that  case  in  all  the  American  Reports.  Indeed, 
the  main  point  decided  in  it  has  been  ruled  the  other 
way  in  some  half  dozen  American  slave-holding 
states,  in  all,  in  fact,  Mississippi  excepted,  in  which 


208  DESPOTISM 

the  point  has  been  directly  raised.  For  it  is  to  be 
noted,  that,  until  quite  recently,  the  courts  even  of  the 
slave-holding  states  have  exhibited  no  little  alacrity 
in  giving  freedom  to  individuals,  and  even  to  families 
claimed  to  be  held  as  slaves,  speaking  out  in  such 
cases  very  warmly  for  liberty,  and  exhibiting  evident 
gusto  and  satisfaction  in  knocking  off  the  fetters.  It 
has  only  been  in  cases  likely  to  prove  too  sweeping 
as  precedents,  cases  involving  principles  comprehen 
sive  enough  to  give  freedom  to  large  numbers,  that 
this  judicial  tendency  in  favor  of  liberty  has  been 
checked.  The  case  above  referred  to  was  that  of  a 
girl  born  in  slavery  in  the  Island  of  Antigua.  She  had 
been  brought  to  England,  but  whether  from  ignorance 
or  want  of  inclination  had  failed  to  claim  her  liberty 
there,  and  had  returned  to  Antigua,  where  she  was 
still  held  as  a  slave.  The  circumstance,  however,  that 
she  had  been  in  England,  was  presently  set  up  as 
having  made  her  free  ;  and  since  the  local  courts  would 
not  recognize  the  claim,  to  give  her  and  others  in  her 
condition  the  chance  of  an  English  adjudication,  with 
out  the  heavy  expenses  of  an  ordinary  appeal,  (if 
indeed  it  were  possible,  by  the  ordinary  course  of 
appeal,  to  carry  such  a  case  to  England,)  she  was 
libelled  in  the  Vice  Admiralty  Court  of  Antigua,  as 
having  been  introduced  into  that  island  as  a  slave, 
contrary  to  the  acts  abolishing  the  slave  trade ;  and 
the  local  admiralty  judge  having  decided  against  her, 
the  case  came  before  Lord  Stowell  by  appeal.  It  was 
but  a  decent  regard  for  appearances  for  an  English 
judge  in  Lord  Stowell's  position,  and  especially  one 
about  to  make  such  a  decision  as  he  did,  to  indulge 
in  some  flourishes  on  the  subject  of  liberty,  which  his 
lordship  did  very  cheaply,  and  with  a  sort  of  judicial 
demagoguism  sufficiently  common  both  in  England 
and  America,  by  breaking  out  into  a  burst  of  indig 
nation  that  a  person  claiming  to  be  free  should  suffer 
herself  to  be  libelled  as  an  illegally  introduced  slave  ! 
—  when,  without  resorting  to  any  such  humiliating 
method  of  vindicating  her  rights,  she  had  nothing 


IN    AMERICA.  209 

to  do  but  to  claim  to  be  free,  and  to  act  as  such  ! 
As  if  such  a  claim  made  in  Antigua,  as  it  then  was, 
would  have  availed  poor  Grace!  As  if  my  lord  did 
not  perfectly  well  know  why  a  procedure  in  the 
Admiralty  Court  had  been  resorted  to  ! 

Stowell  had  gained  the  reputation  of  a  "consum 
mate  judge,"  by  a  series  of  learned  and  ingenious 
decisions,  by  which,  during  the  war  between  France 
and  England,  he  had  zealously,  and,  according  to  a 
common  enough  view  of  such  matters,  patriotically  la 
bored  to  secure  to  the  merchants  of  England  a  much 
coveted  monopoly  of  ocean  commerce  —  an  object 
which  he  had  accomplished  by  giving  to  a  few  ques 
tionable  old  precedents,  and  especially  to  an  arbitrary 
rule  introduced  by  England  during  the  war  of  1756, 
the  character  of  the  Law  of  Nations,  and  on  that 
ground,  justifying  the  wholesale  capture  and  plunder 
of  American  and  other  neutral  vessels,  trading  be 
tween  France  and  her  colonies.  As  was  natural 
enough  for  such  a  judge,  he  did  not  at  all  share  in  the 
sentiment  then  fast  spreading  in  England  against 
negro  slavery;  indeed,  he  was  eager  to  give  to  that 
crumbling  institution  all  the  support  of  his  profession 
al  reputation.  Yet  he  felt  obliged  to  admit,  however 
good  a  thing  slavery  might  be,  that  the  practice  of 
dragging  back  into  it  those  who  had  once  enjoyed  the 
blessings  of  freedom,  had  been  attended  by  lamenta 
ble  consequences.  "  Persons,  though  possessed  of  in 
dependence  and  affluence,  acquired  in  the  mother 
country,  have,  upon  a  return  to  the  colonies,  been  held 
and  treated  as  slaves,  and  the  unfortunate  descend 
ants  of  these  persons,  if  born  within  the  colony,  have 
come  slaves  into  the  world,  and,  in  some  instances, 
have  suffered  all  the  consequences  of  real  slavery." 
Yet  in  the  eyes  of  such  a  man  as  Stowell,  what 
were  these  agonies  of  oppressed  humanity  in  compe 
tition  with  the  necessity  of  giving  to  the  holders  of 
property  a  sentiment  of  security,  and  especially  to 
the  holders  of  property  in  men,  attacked  at  that  mo 
ment  by  so  many  wicked  or  thoughtless  abolitionists? 
18* 


210  DESPOTISM 

—  for  it  was  in  the  midst  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation 
in  England,  that  this  judgment  was  rendered. 

Yet,  if  Grace  had  left  England  a  free  British  sub 
ject,  as  the  decision  in  Somerset's  case  would  seem  to 
imply,  by  what  process,  on  landing  in  Antigua,  had 
she  been  transformed  into  a  slave?  The  case  of 
Somerset  was  directly  opposed  to  the  decision  which 
Stowell's  antecedent  and  present  associations  and 
opinions  had  predetermined  him  to  make ;  and,  there 
fore,  it  was  necessary  to  explain  that  decision  away. 
That  Somerset  had  been  properly  discharged,  he  did 
not  venture  to  deny,  but  the  reasons  given  by  Lord 
Mansfield  for  that  discharge  he  set  aside  altogether. 
Putting  those  reasons  aside,  that  case,  according  to 
Lord  Stowell,  went  no  further  than  this :  "  The  slave 
continues  a  slave,  though  the  law  of  England  re 
lieves  from  the  rigor  of  that  code  while  he  is  in  Eng 
land,  and  that  is  all  that  it  does."  All  that  had  been 
said  about  a  slave  not  being  able  to  breathe  in  Eng 
land,  was  a  mere  flourish  of  rhetoric,  and  as  soon  as 
Grace  returned  to  Antigua,  her  master,  freed  from  the 
annoying  interference  of  the  English  law,  regained 
all  his  rights ! 

But  supposing  that  to  be  so,  yet  by  what  law  of 
Antigua  was  Grace  held  as  a  slave?  The  legislature 
of  Antigua  had  no  power  to  make  laws  repugnant 
to  those  of  England ;  and  not  only  had  they  no  power, 
but  taking  it  for  granted  that  slavery  was  recognized 
by  the  common  law,  they  had  allowed  it  to  rest  on 
that  basis  alone.  Not  only  was  there  no  statute  of 
Antigua  expressly  authorizing  the  slavery  of  negroes, 
but  by  a  statute  passed  in  1705,  and  never  repealed, 
the  common  law  of  England  was  declared  to  be  the 
law  of  that  colony,  except  when  altered  by  written 
laws  of  the  island,  and  "  all  customs  and  pretended 
customs  and  usage,  contradictory  thereto,"  were  pro 
nounced  "  illegal,  null,  and  void."  Here  was  fresh 
and  urgent  occasion  for  attacking  the  reasoning  of 
Lord  Mansfield  in  Somerset's  case ;  for  where,  so  far 
as  Antigua  was  concerned,  was  that  basis  of  positive 


IN     AMERICA. 

law  which  he  had  demanded  as  the  only  one  upon 
which  so  "  odious  "  an  institution  could  be  made  to 
stand? — an  institution  which  he  had  pronounced 
incapable  of  being  introduced  upon  any  reasons  moral 
or  political,  but  only  by  positive  law. 

Lord  Hardwicke,  in  his  attempt  to  legalize  slavery, 
had  seemed  disposed  to  represent  it  as  a  mere  con 
tinuation  of  the  system  of  villeinage.  Lord  Stowell 
did  not  fail  to  perceive  the  weakness  of  that  position ; 
for  if  villeinage  was  too  odious  a  system  to  stand 
against  the  public  sentiment  even  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  how  could  any  mere  copy  or  imitation  of  it 
in  the  shape  of  negro  slavery  be  expected  to  be  tol 
erated  in  the  nineteenth  ?  Alarmed  apparently  lest 
the  same  strict  constructions  and  legal  principles 
which  had  operated  to  abolish  villeinage  might  be 
brought  to  bear  against  the  enslavement  of  negroes, 
he  labored  to  distinguish  and  exalt  that  "  as  part  of  a 
system  extending  into  foreign  countries  and  trans 
marine  possessions,"  and  therefore  not  to  be  subject 
ed  to  the  narrow  constructions  and  local  humanities 
of  English  jurisprudence.  The  English  sailors  have 
a  proverb,  "  No  Sunday  off  soundings,"  and  exactly 
in  the  spirit  of  that  proverb  seem  to  be  conceived 
many  of  the  decisions  of  the  English  Admiralty  Courts, 
and  indeed  much  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain, 
of  which  the  Chinese  opium  war  may  be  cited  as  a 
flagrant  instance.  Yet  the  Law  of  Nations,  a  mantle 
wide  enough,  as  it  proved  in  Lord  Stowell's  hands,  to 
cover  such  a  multitude  of  wrongs,  could  not  by  itself 
alone  sustain  slavery  in  an  English  colony.  In  the 
particular  case  of  Antigua,  it  became  necessary  not 
only  to  set  aside  the  reasons  given  by  Lord  Mans 
field  for  his  decision  in  the  Somerset  case,  but  to 
take  issue  on  the  very  turning  point  of  those  reasons. 
Lord  Stowell  therefore,  under  the  form  of  modestly 
questioning,  proceeded  to  deny,  point  blank,  the  fun 
damental  proposition  of  Lord  Mansfield,  that  to  up 
hold  slavery  some  "  positive  law "  must  be  shown 
for  it.  "  Ancient  custom,"  so  he  suggested,  "  is  gen- 


212  DESPOTISM 

erally  recognized  as  a  just  foundation  of  all  law." 
"  A  great  part  of  the  common  law  itself,  in  all  its  re 
lations,  has  little  other  foundation  than  this  same 
custom."  "  That  villeinage  which  is  said  to  be  the 
prototype  of  slavery,  had  no  other  origin  than  ancient 
custom."  And  on  the  strength  of  these  observations, 
he  held  slavery  to  be  legalized  in  Antigua  by  a 
usage  not  two  hundred  years  old,  (since  Antigua  was 
first  settled  in  1632,)  and  though  the  local  statutes  of 
the  island,  coinciding  in  this  particular  with  the  met 
ropolitan  authority,  expressly  denied  any  validity  to 
any  usage  not  conformable  to  the  law  of  England  ! 

These  ideas,  upon  which  Lord  Stowell  thus  at 
tempted  to  base  the  legality  of  negro  slavery  in  the 
colonies,  and  which  would  just  as  well  have  sustained 
it  in  England,  though  not  unusual  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  involve,  however,  a  total  ignorance  or 
disregard  of  the  perfectly  well  established  doctrine  of 
the  English  courts  as  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  law. 
According  to  that  doctrine,  there  are  only  two  possi 
ble  sources  of  law ;  viz.,  1st,  enlightened  reason, 
equity,  natural  justice ;  and  2dly,  positive  legis 
lation.  The  character  and  force  of  law  is  never  con 
ceded  to  customs  and  usages  unsustained  by  positive 
enactments,  except  so  far  as  they  appear  to  corre 
spond  to  the  dictates  of  enlightened  reason,  equity, 
and  natural  justice,  and  not  to  contradict  any  posi 
tive  law.  When  the  common  lawyers  first  began  to 
consider  law  in  a  systematic  and  scientific  point  of 
view,  they  found,  indeed,  the  institutions  of  the  state, 
and  the  proceedings,  maxims,  and  methods  of  the 
courts,  to  be  principally  based  upon  certain  ancient 
usages,  as  to  the  origin  of  which  no  record  or  memo 
rial  existed.  But  whatever  the  historical  fact  might 
have  been,  (as  to  which  we  have  no  resource  beyond 
probable  conjecture,)  the  English  courts  of  common 
law  never  based  the  authority  of  these  ancient  usages, 
institutions,  and  maxims  on  custom,  or  the  mere  lapse 
of  time  during  which  they  had  prevailed,  nor  on  the 
inconvenience  of  disturbing  them.  On  the  other 


IN    AMERICA.  213 

hand,  they  constantly  represented  these  usages  and 
institutions,  including  among  the  rest  the  preroga 
tives  of  the  king,  the  authority  of  parliament,  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  courts,  the  privileges  of  the  peers, 
the  rights  of  the  commons,  and  the  servitude  of  the 
villeins,  as  being  founded,  in  the  words  of  Lord 
Mansfield,  on  "  positive  law  " — that  is,  on  formal  stat 
utes  and  precise  enactments,  of  which,  however,  from 
the  lapse  of  time  and  the  dilapidation  of  records,  no 
memorial  any  longer  existed,  except  in  the  general 
usage  of  the  realm  and  the  memory  of  the  courts. 
But  thus  to  invest  a  usage  or  institution  with  the 
character  of  "  positive  law,"  (which  the  courts  held 
themselves  bound  to  carry  out  without  stopping  to 
inquire  into  its  justice,  expediency,  or  reasonable 
ness,  of  which  the  legislature  was  admitted  to  be  the 
sole  authoritative  judge,)  that  usage  or  institution 
must,  like  the  peerage,  villeinage,  or  the  rights  of  pri 
mogeniture,  be  traceable  back  to  a  time  beyond  the 
period  of  legal  memory,  which  period  was  held  by 
the  courts  to  commence  with  the  reign  of  Richard 
L,  A.  D.  1189,  very  few  records  of  an  earlier  date 
being  in  existence.  As  to  customs  and  usages  of  a 
more  modern  date,  the  origin  of  which  could  be 
shown,  they  must  depend  exclusively  for  their  sanc 
tion  upon  their  reasonableness, — their  conformity, 
that  is,  to  natural  equity  and  justice,  and  to  an  en 
lightened  view  of  the  public  welfare ;  and  it  was  still 
further  necessary  that  they  should  not  conflict  with 
any  rights  already  established  by  law,  that  is, 
that  they  should  conform  to  the  general  policy  of  the 
realm. 

Undoubtedly  the  modern  common  law  consists  to  a 
great  extent  of  modern  customs  introduced  by  the 
growing  exigencies  of  society,  and  confirmed  and 
sanctioned  by  the  courts.  Nobody  ever  did  more,  nor 
indeed  any  thing  near  so  much,  as  Lord  Mansfield 
himself,  thus  to  amplify  and  enrich  the  common  law, 
grafting  upon  it  the  best  portions  of  the  civil  law 
and  of  the  commercial  codes  of  modern  Europe.  But 


214  DESPOTISM 

negro  slavery  being  an  institution  neither  reasonable, 
just,  nor  tending  to  the  good  of  society,  nor  to  the 
mutual  benefit  of  the  parties  concerned,  and  being 
moreover,  in  many  of  its  consequences,  "  absolutely 
contrary"  to  English  law,  it  was  impossible  for  Lord 
Mansfield  to  hold  either  that  the  pecuniary  con 
venience  of  the  London  merchants,  or  that  the  two 
or  three  hundred  years  during  which  such  slavery  had 
prevailed,  could  make  it  legal.  And  if  negro  slavery 
could  not  be  legalized  by  mere  usage  in  England, 
neither  could  it  be  so  legalized  in  the  colonies.  That 
which  the  colonial  assemblies  had  no  power  to  do  di 
rectly,  could  not  be  done  indirectly  by  the  mere  act 
of  the  inhabitants.  Even  admitting  that  negro  sla 
very,  as  Lord  Stowell  seems  strongly  disposed  to  argue, 
though  a  bad  and  unreasonable  custom  in  England, 
was  a  good  and  reasonable  one  in  the  colonies, — in  fact 
he  secretly  thought  that  slavery  was  a  good  custom 
everywhere;  nor  on  any  other  assumption  could  it 
have  been  logically  possible  to  render  the  judgment 
which  he  did; — yet  even  that  admission  could  not 
alter  the  case ;  because  whether  good  or  bad,  yet 
being  an  institution  "repugnant"  to  the  law  of  Eng 
land,  neither  the  legislation  of  the  assemblies  nor  the 
usage  of  the  planters  could  give  to  it,  in  the  colonies, 
the  character  of  law. 

The  difference  between  Lord  Mansfield  and  Lord 
Stowell  is,  it  will  be  perceived,  absolute  and  funda 
mental.  According  to  Lord  Mansfield  and  the  com 
mon  lawyers,  injustice  never  can  be  clothed  with  the 
character  of  law  by  mere  usage,  however  long  con 
tinued,  nor  in  any  way,  except  by  some  positive  act 
of  the  governing  power.  Some  legislator  must  be 
found  on  whom  the  responsibility  of  such  injustice 
can  be  fixed.  Some  positive  law  must  be  pointed 
out  by  which  this  privileged  wrong  is  expressly  and 
plainly  authorized  in  its  whole  extent.  Here  is  surely 
a  great  check  to  oppression,  the  greatest  perhaps 
which  existing  circumstances  admit  of — a  check  which 
Lord  Stowell  and  the  lawyers  of  his  school  seek  to 


I 

IN    AMERICA.  215" 

break  down.  Besides  the  government  openly  legis 
lating,  and  thus  in  tbe  face  of  public  opinion  assum 
ing  the  responsibility  for  whatever  it  enacts,  the  dread 
authority  of  making  unjust  laws  is  to  be  conferred 
in  addition  upon  private  interest  working  secretly  in 
the  dark !  Whatever  advantages  superior  force  and 
cunning  may,  as  in  the  case  of  negro  slavery,  have 
been  able  to  take  and  to  keep  for  a  generation  or  two 
over  weakness  and  ignorance,  shall  thereby  become 
law!  Surely  a  most  alarming  doctrine,  tending  to 
create  the  most  terrible  of  tyrannies,  infinitely  more  to 
be  dreaded,  infinitely  more  fruitful  in  wrong  than 
crime  and  violence  ever  could  be  if  compelled  to 
show  themselves  and  to  act  openly  in  the  face  of  the 
world!  No  other  comparison  will  suit  such  legisla 
tion  but  that  of  the  snake  swallowing  down  by  im 
perceptible  degrees  his  crushed  and  slavered  victim. 

This  doctrine  of  the  power  of  possession  and  usage 
to  give  legal  validity  to  slavery  is  the  natural  conse 
quence  of  confounding  men  with  things.  With  re 
spect  to  things,  that  which  the  peace  of  the  community 
chiefly  requires,  that  in  which  the  interests  of  com 
merce  are  concerned,  is,  that  every  thing'  should  have 
a  certain  definite  owner ;  and  therefore  public  con 
venience  imperatively  demands  that  the  neglect,  for 
a  certain  period,  to  vindicate  one's  claim  to  the  prop 
erty  of  a  thing  should  be  esteemed  a  relinquishment 
of  that  claim  in  favor  of  the  person  already  in  posses 
sion.  But  this  doctrine  can  have  no  application 
whatever  to  the  case  of  men,  in  whom  the  English 
law  does  not  admit  any  power  to  convey  away  or  sur 
render  up  even  their  own  liberty,  and  still  less  that 
of  their  unborn  children ;  and  whom  therefore  no 
mere  lapse  of  time  can  ever  bar  from  claiming  their 
personal  freedom  whenever  they  feel  the  impulse  to 
do  so. 

In  the  particular  case  of  the  British  slave-holding 
colonies,  it  may  have  been  very  true,  as  Lord  Stowell 
suggests,  (and  the  same  idea  is  dropped  also  by  Chief 
Justice  Best  in  the  case  of  Forbes  v.  Cochrane,)  thai 


216  DESPOTISM 

a  sovereign  state  like  England,  looking  quietly  on, 
and  allowing  slavery  to  prevail  without  law  and 
against  law  in  her  colonies,  was  quite  as  guilty  of 
the  wrong  as  the  colonies  themselves,  if  not  indeed 
more  so.  That  might  have  been  a  very  good  reason 
why  the  act  of  parliament  about  which  Lord  Mans 
field  had  spoken,  (though  perhaps  in  a  somewhat  dif 
ferent  sense,)  when  it  came  at  length  to  be  enacted — 
and  its  passage  was  probably  hastened  by  Lord 
StowelFs  decision — took  upon  the  mother  country 
a  large  share  of  the  burden  of  the  abolition  of  sla 
very.  And  the  same  reasoning  might  be  forcibly 
urged  as  between  the  slave  states  and  the  free  states 
of  our  American  confederacy.  But  the  question  of 
the  relative  guilt  of  those  who  trampled  on  the  weak 
and  of  those  who  connived  at  it,  and  of  the  distribu 
tion  between  them  of  the  burden  of  restitution,  can 
not  in  any  way  affect  the  legal  status  of  those  who, 
in  the  mean  time,  are  deprived  of  their  rights;  nor  can 
any  distribution  of  the  blame  of  it  give  to  that  dep 
rivation  any  of  the  qualities  of  legality. 

Overlooking  this  undeniable  fact,  the  apologists 
for  American  slavery,  not  content  with  insisting  that 
the  mother  country  connived  at,  and  indeed  positive 
ly  authorized,  its  original  introduction,  have  gone  still 
further,  and  have  boldly  asserted  that  slavery  was 
forced  upon  the  colonies  by  the  mother  country, 
against  their  will,  and  in  spite  of  their  efforts  to  pre 
vent  it.  Bancroft,  in  his  History,  has  labored,  with 
his  usual  patriotic  partiality,  to  give  color  to  this 
charge,  which  originated  with  Jefferson,  and  which 
made  its  first  appearance  in  the  declamatory  intro 
duction  to  the  first  constitution  of  Virginia.  Jeffer 
son  wished  to  repeat  it,  in  a  still  more  direct  and  em 
phatic  form,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  but 
it  was  rather  too  much  to  ask  the  delegates  from 
Georgia  to  denounce  the  slave-trade  as  "a  cruel  war 
against  human  nature,  violating  its  most  sacred 
rights  of  life  and  liberty."  Having  struggled  against, 
and  finally  defeated,  the  attempt  to  make  her  a  free 


IN    AMERICA.  217 

community,  how  could  Georgia  charge  the  mother 
country  with  forcing  upon  her  that  "  execrable  com 
merce,"  the  slave-trade?  Jefferson  hated  Britain,  he 
hated  slavery,  and  he  wished  to  bring  these  hatreds 
into  juxtaposition ;  but  to  do  so  required  a  very  ex 
cited  imagination.  Had  any  colony  ever  prohibited 
the  introduction  of  negroes;  had  any  colony  ever 
enacted  that  negroes  should  stand  on  the  same 
ground  as  white  servants,  and  be  discharged  at  the 
end  of  seven  years'  service ;  and  had  the  king  vetoed 
such  enactments — he  might  then  have  been  justly 
charged  with  forcing  slavery  on  the  colonies.  But 
no  colony  ever  passed  any  such  law,  or  thought  of 
doing  so.  The  vetoes  on  which  Jefferson  relied  were 
of  a  very  different  sort.  The  colonies,  especially 
those  of  the  south,  wished  to  raise  a  part  of  their 
revenue  by  duties  on  imports,  with  the  double  object 
of  lightening  the  burden  of  direct  taxation,  and  giv 
ing  protection  to  domestic  manufactures.  Among 
the  chief  imports  into  the  southern  colonies  were 
negroes.  But  in  seeking  to  impose  a  tax  of  a  few 
pounds  on  each  negro  imported,  the  colonial  legisla 
tures,  as  a  general  thing,  no  more  intended  to  abolish 
or  even  to  restrict  slavery  or  the  slave-trade,  than 
Congress,  when  it  agreed  to  the  square  yard  mini 
mum  duty  upon  cotton  goods,  intended  to  abolish  or 
restrict  the  use  of  muslins  and  calicoes.  The  Eng 
lish  merchants,  in  whose  hands  the  commerce  of 
the  colonies  was,  were  then,  as  now,  advocates  of 
free  trade;  they  complained  of  these  duties,  the 
one  on  negroes  among  the  rest,  as  an  interference 
with  their  commercial  rights;  and  they  had  interest 
enough  with  the  British  government  to  procure  a 
standing  instruction  to  all  the  royal  governors  not 
to  consent  to  such  sort  of  taxes.  Finally,  however, 
the  matter  was  compromised  by  allowing  the  colonial 
legislatures  to  impose  such  duty  as  they  pleased  on 
negroes  imported,  provided  it  were  made  payable, 
not  by  the  seller,  the  English  trader,  but  by  the  buyer, 
the  colonist  planter. 

id 


218  DESPOTISM 

It  seems,  then,  to  be  very  plainly  made  out,  that  at 
the  commencement  of  our  Revolution,  slavery  had 
no  legal  basis  in  any  of  the  North  American  colonies.* 
It  existed,  as  many  other  wrongs  existed,  in  all  of 
them.  In  many  of  the  colonies,  the  assemblies,  under 
a  mistaken  view  of  the  law  of  England  or  of  their  own 
powers,  or  through  wilful  disregard  of  acknowledged 
restraints,  had  attempted  to  give  to  it  the  sanction  of 
law.  But  by  that  same  law  of  England,  which  the 
colonists  claimed  as  their  birthright,  and  to  which 
they  so  loudly  appealed  against  the  usurpations  of 
the  mother  country,  all  such  statutes  were  void.  The 
negroes  were  too  ignorant  to  know  their  rights,  and 
too  helpless  to  vindicate  them.  They  could  not  ap 
peal  to  England,  like  the  South  Carolina  dissenters, 
nor  had  they  a  powerful  party  there  to  support  their 
rights ;  but,  legally  speaking,  they  were  all  free ;  and 
this,  as  to  all  of  them  at  least  who  had  been  born  in 
the  colonies,  was  fully  admitted,  as  has  been  already 
noticed,  eight  years  previous  to  the  decision  in  Som 
erset's  case,  by  James  Otis,  in  his  famous  tract  on 
the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonists." 

It  remains,  then,  to  inquire,  whether  that  Revolu 
tion,  which  we  are  accustomed  to  extol  as  an  out 
burst  of  liberty,  a  memorable  vindication  of  the 
Rights  of  Man,  did,  in  fact,  give  to  slavery  a  legal 
character;  whether  men,  entitled  by  British  law  to 
their  freedom,  because  slaves  under  the  State  and  Fed 
eral  Constitutions ;  and  this  is  the  question  which  we 
propose  to  discuss  in  the  following  section. 

*  For  further  details  on  this  subject,  and  an  account  of  the  partic 
ular  incident  upon  which  Jefferson's  charges  seem  to  have  been 
chiefly  based,  see  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States  >  vol.  ii. 
chap,  xxvii. 


f 

IN    AMERICA.  219 


SECTION  III. 

Slavery  in  the  States,  and  under  the  Federal  Con 
stitution. 

WE  examined  in  the  previous  section  the  preten 
sions  of  slavery — as  it  existed  in  the  British  North 
American  colonies  prior  to  the  Revolution  which  con 
verted  those  colonies  into  the  United  States  of 
America — to  rest  upon  a  legal  basis.  We  found,  in 
most  of  the  colonies,  statutes  of  the  colonial  assem 
blies  of  an  earlier  or  later  date,  and  in  all  of  them,  a 
practice  assuming  to  legalize  the  slavery  of  negroes, 
Indians,  and  the  mixed  race ;  to  make  that  slavery 
hereditary  wherever  the  mother  was  a  slave ;  and,  as 
to  all  claims  of  freedom,  to  throw  the  burden  of  proof 
on  the  claimant.  But  we  also  found  that  this  prac 
tice,  and  all  the  statutes  attempting  to  legalize  it, 
were  in  direct  conflict  with  great  and  perfectly  well 
settled  principles  of  the  law  of  England,  which  was 
also  the  supreme  law  of  the  colonies ;  principles 
which  the  colonial  legislatures  and  the  colonial  courts 
had  no  authority  to  set  aside  or  to  contradict; 
and  thence  we  concluded  that  American  slavery, 
prior  to  the  Revolution,  had  no  legal  basis,  but  exist 
ed  as  it  had  done  in  England  for  some  two  centuries 
or  more  prior  to  Somerset's  case — a  mere  usurpation 
on  th£  part  of  the  masters,  and  a  mere  wrong  as  re 
spected  those  alleged  to  be  slaves. 

Nor  is  this  view  of  the  matter  by  any  means  ori 
ginal,  or  at  all  of  recent  origin.  It  was  taken  and 
acted  on  and  made  the  basis  of  emancipation  in 
Massachusetts,  while  the  British  rule  still  prevailed 
in  America.  The  best  account,  indeed,  almost  the 
only  original  account  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
Massachusetts,  is  contained  in  a  paper  by  Dr.  Bel- 
knap,  printed  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Collec 
tions.  Dr.  Belknap  states,  that  about  the  time  of  the 
commencement  of  the  revolutionary  disputes,  sev- 


220  DESPOTISM 

eral  opponents  of  slavery  "  took  occasion  publicly  to 
remonstrate  against  the  inconsistency  of  contending 
for  our  own  liberty,  and  at  the  same  time  depriving 
other  people  of  theirs."  Nathaniel  Appleton  and 
James  Swan,  merchants  of  Boston,  distinguished 
themselves  as  writers  on  the  side  of  liberty.  "  Those 
on  the  other  side  generally  concealed  their  names, 
but  their  arguments  were  not  suffered  to  rest  long 
without  an  answer.  The  controversy  began  about 
the  year  1766,  and  was  renewed  at  various  times  till 
1773,  when  it  was  very  warmly  agitated,  and  became 
the  subject  of  forensic  disputation  at  the  public  Com 
mencement  in  Harvard  College." 

So  far,  at  least,  as  concerned  the  further  impor 
tation  of  negroes  and  others  "  as  slaves,"  the  subject 
was  introduced  also  into  the  General  Court ;  but  nei 
ther  Bernard,  Hutchinson,  nor  Gage  would  concur  in 
any  legislation  upon  it.  "  The  blacks,"  says  Belknap, 
"  had  better  success  in  the  judicial  courts.  A  pam 
phlet  containing  the  case  of  a  negro  who  had  accom 
panied  his  master  from  the  West  Indies  to  England, 
and  had  there  sued  for  and  obtained  his  freedom,  was 
reprinted"  at  Boston,  in  1771,  "and  this  encouraged 
several  negroes  to  sue  their  masters  for  their  freedom, 
and  for  recompense  of  their  services  after  they  had 
attained  the  age  of  twenty-one  years."  "  The  ne 
groes  collected  money  among  themselves  to  carry  on 
the  suit,  and  it  terminated  favorably.  Other  suits 
were  instituted  between  that  time  and  the  Revolu 
tion,  and  the  juries  invariably  gave  their  verdict  in 
favor  of  liberty."  The  old  fundamental  law  of  Mas 
sachusetts  authorizing  the  slavery  of  Indians  and 
negroes  was  no  longer  in  force ;  it  had  fallen 
with  the  first  charter.  Under  the  second  charter  no 
such  statute  had  been  reenacted,  but  slavery  had  con 
tinued  by  custom,  and  had  apparently  been  recog 
nized  by  the  statutes  of  the  province,  as  a  legal  rela 
tion.  "  The  pleas  on  the  part  of  the  masters  were, 
that  the  negroes  were  purchased  in  open  market,  and 
bills  of  sale  were  produced  in  evidence;  that  the 


IN    AMERICA. 

laws  of  the  province  recognized  slavery  as  existing  in 
:<t,  by  declaring  that  no  person  should  manumit  his 
slave  without  giving  bond  for  his  maintenance,  &c. 
On  the  part  of  the  blacks  it  was  pleaded,  that  the 
royal  charter  expressly  declared  all  persons  born  or 
residing  in  the  province  to  be  as  free  as  the  king's 
subjects  in  Great  Britain;  that  by  the  law  of  Eng 
land,  no  man  could  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  but  by 
the  judgment  of  his  peers;  that  the  laws  of  the  prov 
ince  respecting  an  evil  existing,  and  attempting  to 
mitigate  or  regulate  it,  did  not  authorize  it  ;  and  on 
some  occasions  the  plea  was,  that  though  the  slavery 
of  the  parents  be  admitted,  yet  that  no  disability  of 
that  kind  could  descend  to  the  children."  "  The 
juries  invariably  gave  their  verdict  in  favor  of  lib 
erty  ;  "  nor  does  it  appear  that  these  verdicts  were  in 
any  respect  inconsistent  with  the  instructions  of  the 
judges  as  to  matter  of  law. 

The  blow  thus  dealt  at  slavery  in  Massachusetts 
might  perhaps  have  been  repeated  in  other  colonies  ; 
but  before  there  was  time  for  any  thing  of  the  sort, 
the  Revolution  occurred,  and  new  governments 
stepped  in  to  take  the  places  of  the  old  ones.  This 
brings  us  back  to  the  question  started  at  the  close  of 
the  preceding  section  :  Did  the  new  governments, 
established  at  the  Revolution,  do  any  thing,  or  could 
they  do  any  thing,  to  give  an  additional  character  of 
legality  to  the  institution  of  slavery  ? 

Let  us  begin  with  the  commonwealth  of  Virginia. 
The  convention  of  delegates  and  representatives  from 
the  several  counties  and  corporations  which  assumed 
the  responsibility  of  framing  a  new  government  for 
that  state,  very  properly  prefaced  their  labors  by  set 
ting  forth  a  Declaration  of  Rights,  as  its  "  basis  and 
foundation."  This  Declaration  of  Rights,  bearing 
date  June  12,  1776,  announced,  among  other  things, 
"  that  all  men  are  by  nature  equally  free  and  inde 
pendent,  and  have  certain  inherent  rights,  of  which, 
when  they  enter  into  a  state  of  society,  they  cannot  by 
19* 


I 


222  DESPOTISM 

any  compact  deprive  or  divest  their  posterity;  name 
ly,  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  liberty,  with  the  means 
of  acquiring  and  possessing  property,  and  pursuing 
and  obtaining  happiness  and  safety."  Upon  "the 
basis  and  foundation  "  of  this  Declaration  of  Rights, 
the  convention  proceeded  to  erect  a  "  constitution,  or 
form  of  government,"  in  which  it  was  provided  that 
the  "  common  law  of  England,"  and  all  statutes  of 
parliament  not  local  in  their  character,  made  in  aid 
of  the  common  law  prior  to  the  settlement  of  Vir 
ginia,  "  together  with  the  several  acts  of  the  Gen 
eral  Assembly  of  this  colony  now  in  force,  so  far  as 
the  same  may  consist  with  the  several  ordinances, 
declarations,  and  resolutions  of  the  general  conven 
tion,  shall  be  considered  as  in  full  force  until  the 
same  shall  be  altered  by  the  legislative  power  of  this 
colony."  But  this  provision  could  give  no  validity 
to  the  colonial  acts  for  the  establishment  of  slavery; 
in  the  first  place,  because  those  acts,  legally  speaking, 
were  not  in  force,  and  never  had  been,  being  void 
from  the  beginning,  enacted  in  defiance  of  great 
principles  of  the  English  law,  by  which  the  powers 
of  the  colonial  assembly  were  restricted ;  and  in  the 
second  place,  because  they  did  not  and  could  not 
consist  with  the  above  quoted  "declaration,"  laid 
down  by  the  convention  itself  as  "  the  basis  and 
foundation  "  of  the  new  government. 

Immediately  after  the  adoption  of  this  constitution, 
provision  was  made  for  revising  the  laws  of  Virginia, 
and  a  committee  was  appointed  for  that  purpose; 
but  nothing  was  done  till  1785,  when  several  bills 
prepared  by  the  committee  of  revision  were  sanctioned 
by  the  assembly  and  enacted  as  laws.  In  one  of 
these  acts  it  was  provided,  "that  no  persons  shall 
henceforth  be  slaves  in  this  commonwealth,  except 
such  as  were  so  on  the  first  day  of  this  present  "ses 
sion  of  assembly,  and  the  descendants  of  the  females 
of  them."  This  act,  embodied  into  the  codification 
of  1792,  still  remains  in  force ;  and  through  it  all 
legal  titles  to  slave  property  in  Virginia  must  be 


IN    AMERICA.  223 

traced.  But  in  1785,  there  were  no  persons  legally 
held  as  slaves  in  Virginia.  The  practice  on  this  sub 
ject,  and  the  acts  of  the  colonial  assembly  which 
countenanced  that  practice,  were  contradictory  to  the 
law  of  England,  always  binding  on  the  colonial 
assembly,  and  specially  adopted  by  the  revolutionary 
government  as  the  law  of  Virginia;  and  contra 
dictory,  also,  to  those  general  principles  and  that 
declaration  of  natural  rights  specially  adopted  as 
"the  basis  and  fonnclation  "  of  the  new  government. 
The  convention  which  framed  the  constitution  of 
Virginia  was  far  from  conferring,  or  from  claiming 
any  power  to  confer,  on  the  assembly  any  authority 
to  reduce  any  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  state  to  a 
condition  of  slavery.  The  assembly  was  far  from 
claiming  the  possession  of  any  such  power,  or  from 
attempting  to  add  any  thing  to  the  legal  basis  upon 
which  slavery  rested  prior  to  the  Revolution.  It  re 
mained  then  what  it  had  been  in  colonial  times,  a 
mere  usurpation,  without  any  legal  basis ;  a  usurpa 
tion  in  direct  defiance  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 
upheld  by  mere  force  and  terror,  and  the  overwhelm 
ing  power  and  influence  of  the  masters,  without  law 
and  against  law. 

The  convention  of  Maryland,  (which  upon  the 
breaking  out  of  hostilities  with  the  mother  country 
had  displaced  the  proprietary  government,)  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  Virginia,  adopted,  on  the  3d  of 
November,  1776,  a  Declaration  of  Rights,  the  intro 
ductory  part  of  a  new  constitution,  in  which  they 
declared,  "  that  all  government  of  right  originates  from 
the  people ;  is  founded  in  compact  only,  and  is  con 
stituted  solely  for  the  good  of  the  whole  ;  "  and  "  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Maryland  are  entitled  to  the  com 
mon  law  of  England ;  to  all  English  statutes  appli 
cable  to  their  situation,  passed  before  the  settlement 
of  Maryland,  and  introduced  and  practised  on  in  the 
colony  ;  and  also  to  all  acts  of  the  old  colonial  assem 
bly  "in  force5'  on  the  1st  of  June,  1774.  But  the 


224  DESPOTISM 

acts  of  assembly  sanctioning  and  legalizing  slavery 
were  not  "  in  force  "  on  the  1st  of  June,  1774,  nor  at 
any  other  time.  They  never  had  been  in  force ;  they 
were  contrary  to  the  law  of  England,  to  a  corre 
spondency  with  which  the  colonial  assembly  was 
specially  limited  by  charter.  Yet  it  is  on  these  void 
acts  that  the  supposed  legality  of  slavery  in  Mary 
land  still  continues  to  rest. 

The  constitution  of  North  Carolina,  formed  Decem 
ber  17,  1776,  contains  not  one  single  word  respecting 
slavery.  That  institution  did  not  receive  even  the 
semblance  of  support  derived  in  Virginia  and 
Maryland  from  the  continuation  in  force  of  the  colo 
nial  acts ;  for  no  act  of  the  colonial  assembly  of 
North  Carolina  had  ever  attempted  to  define  who 
were  or  might  be  slaves.  Nor  was  any  such  attempt 
made  by  the  newly-established  assembly.  Slavery 
remained  in  the  state  of  North  Carolina  what  it  had 
been  in  the  colony, — a  mere  custom,  a  sheer  usurpa 
tion,  not  sustained  by  even  the  semblance  of  law. 

Neither  the  first  constitution  of  South  Carolina, 
adopted  in  March,  1776,  nor  the  second  constitution, 
adopted  March,  1778,  contains  a  single  word  attempt 
ing  to  legalize  slavery,  nor  even  any  clause  contin 
uing  in  force  the  old  colonial  acts.  Bat  in  February, 
1777,  in  the  interval  between  the  two  constitutions, 
an  act  of  assembly  revived  and  continued  in  force 
for  five  years  certain  of  those  acts,  among  others  the 
act  of  1740,  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  of  which  a 
synopsis  was  given  in  the  preceding  section ;  and  in 
1783,  this  act  was  made  perpetual.  But  the  act  of 
1740  was  void  from  the  beginning,  by  reason  of  nu 
merous  contradictions  to  the  law  of  England  which 
the  colonial  assembly  of  South  Carolina  had  no 
power  to  enact  into  law.  If,  then,  the  reviving  acts 
of  1777  and  1783  are  to  have  any  validity,  they  must 
be  considered  as  original  acts,  subjecting  half  the 
population  of  South  Carolina  to  perpetual  slavery. 


IN    AMERICA.  225 

Had  the  assembly  of  South  Carolina  any  authority 
to  pass  such  acts  ?  Has  it  any  such  authority  at  this 
moment?  Could  the  South  Carolina  democrats, 
having  a  majority  in  the  assembly,  pass  a  valid  act 
for  selling  all  the  whigs  into  perpetual  slavery?  or 
all  inhabitants  of  Irish  descent?  or  all  white  men  not 
freeholders  and  not  possessed  of  visible  property  ?  or 
all  citizens  of  Massachusetts  who  might  land  on  her 
hospitable  coast? 

We  must  always  remember,  in  considering  ques 
tions  of  this  sort,  that  not  the  federal  government 
only,  but  the  state  governments,  also,  are  govern 
ments  of  limited  powers.  The  sovereign  power  is  in 
the  people,  or  that  portion  of  it  possessed  of  political 
rights ;  the  holders  of  offices  created  by  the  state  con 
stitutions  possess  no  authority  not  specially  conferred 
on  them  by  those  constitutions.  Admit,  for  the  sake 
of  the  argument,  that  the  sovereign  people  of  South 
Carolina  are  omnipotent,  and  can  give  the  character 
of  law  to  the  most  atrocious  wrongs ;  yet,  surely,  no 
state  legislature  can  exercise  any  such  authority,  un 
less  it  be  expressly  delegated.  But  the  constitutions 
of  South  Carolina  delegated  no  such  power;  and 
a  power  in  a  state  legislature  to  reduce,  at  its  pleas 
ure,  to  the  condition  of  perpetual  servitude,  any 
portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  state,  and  that  not  for 
public  but  for  private  uses,  is  hardly  to  be  presumed 
as  one  of  the  ordinary  powers  of  legislation,  at  least 
in  a  state  which,  in  the  solemn  act  of  separation 
from  the  mother  country,  had  united  in  declaring 
that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal,  and  that  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  are  inalienable 
rights. 

The  first  constitution  of  Georgia,  formed  in  Feb 
ruary,  1777,  contains  no  allusion  to  slavery.  The 
legislative  power  of  the  assembly  is  restricted  to 
"  such  laws  and  regulations  as  may  be  conducive  to 
the  good  order  and  well  being  of  the  state."  Unsup 
ported  by  any  new  authority,  the  system  of  slavery 


226  DESPOTISM 

was  left  in  Georgia,  as  in  the  other  states,  to  rest  on 
such  legal  basis  as  it  might  have  had  during  colonial 
times.  The  rottenness  of  that  basis  was  not  per 
ceived  by  the  state  legislatures  nor  by  the  state  courts. 
Their  preconceived  prejudices,  their  unwillingness  to 
look  into  the  matter  at  all,  kept  them  blind  to  it; 
but  their  blindness,  their  ignorance,  their  mistakes, 
could  not  alter  the  law,  rior  make  that  legal  which  in 
fact  was  not  so. 

There  was,  indeed,  the  best  of  reasons  why  none 
of  the  States — however  several  of  them  might  be  will 
ing  to  leave  to  slavery  such  character  of  legality  as 
it  had  acquired  from  colonial  legislation — should  have 
ventured  upon  any  direct  attempts,  by  virtue  of  their 
newly-assumed  powers,  to  bestow  upon  it  a  new  and 
original  character  of  legality.  For,  however  jurists 
and  courts  of  law  may  have  admitted  a  legal  omnipo 
tence  in  governments,  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
in  rising  against  the  mother  country,  and  establishing 
themselves  as  a  separate  nation,  had  expressly  re 
nounced  any  such  claims.  Not  to  mention  particu 
lar  State  Bills  of  Rights,  their  joint  Declaration  of 
Independence — that  public  and  official  exhibition  of 
reasons  for  the  steps  they  had  taken  in  breaking  up 
their  union  with  Great  Britain — proceeded  on  the 
very  ground  that  men  possess  certain  inherent  and 
unalienable  Rights,  including  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness — rights  which  no  government  has 
authority  to  take  away,  unless,  indeed,  in  the  way  of 
punishment  for  crimes — and  any  deliberate  and  con 
tinuous  attempt  to  invade  which,  justifies  resistance 
even  unto  death.  With  what  face  could  governments 
which  had  just  made  such  a  declaration  of  principles 
proceed  to  enact  laws  subjecting  to  perpetual  and  he 
reditary  servitude  one  half  or  more  of  their  inhab 
itants  ?  How  paltry,  how  trifling,  side  by  side  with 
such  a  terrible  assumption,  must  have  appeared  the 
parliamentary  claim  to  tax  the  colonies,  out  of  which 
the  Revolution  grew ! 


IN     AMERICA.  227 

Nor  was  the  renunciation  thus  made  without  a  more 
direct  and  positive  influence  in  many  of  the  states  ; 
for  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  decided,  in 
1784,  that  the  natural  freedom  and  political  equality 
of  all  men,  proclaimed  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  and  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  prefixed  to  the 
Constitution  adopted  in  that  state  in  1780,  were  to 
tally  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  involuntary 
servitude,  and  that  slavery  under  that  Bill  of  Rights 
could  not  be  legal.  A  similar  clause  in  the  second 
constitution  of  New  Hampshire  was  held  to  guarantee 
personal  freedom  to  all  persons  born  in  that  state  after 
the  adoption  of  that  constitution.  In  Pennsylvania, 
Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island,  personal  liberty  was 
secured  by  statute  to  all  future  natives  of  those 
states ;  and,  to  complete  this  scheme  of  abolition  in 
these  three  states,  as  well  as  in  New  Hampshire,  the 
further  introduction  of  persons  claimed  as  slaves,  or 
the  exportation  of  such  persons  from  those  states,  was 
prohibited. 

In  five  of  the  eight  remaining  states,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  slavery 
was  regarded,  by  the  more  intelligent  and  enlightened 
citizens,  including  all  those  distinguished  men  who 
had  taken  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  late  Revolution, 
as  an  evil  and  a  wrong  inconsistent  with  the  princi 
ples  on  which  that  Revolution  was  founded.  Its  ter 
mination  was  anxiously  looked  for,  and  confidently 
hoped.  All  those  five  states  had  taken  the  first  step 
in  that  direction  by  prohibiting  the  further  introduc 
tion  of  persons  claimed  as  slaves  ;  while  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  by  repealing  the  old  colonial  acts  which 
forbade  manumissions,  except  by  the  allowance  of 
the  governor  and  council,  had  opened  a  door  for  the 
action  of  individual  sentiment  in  favor  of  liberty 
which  came  soon  into  active  exercise. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  in  the  ten  northern 
states  when  the  Federal  convention  came  together ; 
and,  pending  the  session  of  that  convention,  the  fa 
mous  ordinance  of  1787  was  passed  by  the  Congress 


228  DESPOTISM 

of  the  confederation,  by  which  involuntary  servitude, 
except  for  crime,  was  forever  prohibited  in  the  terri 
tory  north-west  of  the  Ohio,  the  only  territory  to 
which,  as  yet,  the  confederacy  had  any  title. 

Yet  this  rising  sentiment  in  favor  of  impartial  lib 
erty  encountered  a  formidable  opposition.  The  abo 
lition  of  slavery  had  been  carried,  indeed,  in  five  of 
the  states,  but  in  only  one  of  those  five  had  it  been 
thorough,  sweeping,  and  complete.  Four  had  pro 
vided  for  the  future,  but  had  not  thought  it  expedient 
to  interfere  with  the  present.  In  five  other  states,  a 
commencement  only  had  been  made.  The  mass  of 
the  slave-holders  in  those  five  states  clung  with  te 
nacity  to  their  prey  ;  and  the  friends  of  emancipation, 
though  their  influence  was  apparent,  did  not  yet  ven 
ture  to  propose  any  very  decisive  measures.  In  the 
Carolinas  and  Georgia  the  case  was  much  worse. 
The  Quakers  of  North  Carolina  had  indeed  com 
menced  the  emancipation  of  their  slaves,  but  the  as 
sembly  of  that  state  put  a  stop  to  that  "  dangerous 
practice,"  as  they  pronounced  it,  by  forbidding  emanci 
pations,  except  by  allowance  of  the  County  Courts,  and 
directing  all  slaves  hitherto  emancipated  without  that 
allowance  to  be  seized  and  resold  into  slavery.  Since 
the  peace,  the  importation  of  slaves  from  the  coast  of 
Africa  into  the  three  southern  states  had  been  recom 
menced,  and  was  vigorously  carried  on.  In  those 
states  there  was  little  thought  of  foregoing  a  system 
ffom  which  great  gains  were  hoped  ;  though  the  legis 
lature  of  North  Carolina,  in  a  recent  act  imposing  a 
duty  on  future  importations,  expressly  admitted  the 
further  introduction  of  slaves  to  be  of  "  evil  conse 
quence,  and  highly  impolitic." 

Let  it  be  remembered,  however, — and  this  consid 
eration,  though  frequently  overlooked  or  disregarded, 
is  absolutely  essential  to  a  correct  understanding  of 
the  case, — that  the  Federal  convention  did  not  assem 
ble  to  revise  the  laws  or  institutions  of  the  states  ;  nor 
to  determine  or  enforce  the  political  or  social  rights 


IN    AMERICA.  229 

appertaining  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  states,  as  such. 
That  had  been  done  already  by  the  state  constitu 
tions.  The  states  existed  as  bodies  politic ;  they  had 
their  laws  defining  the  rights  of  their  citizens  and  in 
habitants,  and  their  courts  for  enforcing  those  rights ; 
and  with  none  of  those  arrangements,  either  by  way 
of  enforcement  or  alteration,  was  it  any  part  of  the 
business  of  the  Federal  convention  to  interfere,  un 
less  in  cases  where  these  arrangements  had  or  might 
have  an  injurious  bearing  upon  the  citizens  of  other 
etates,  or  upon  the  foreign,  relations  of  the  confederacy. 
The  business  of  the  Federal  convention  was,  so  to 
amend  the  articles  of  confederation  as  to  carry  into 
effect  the  objects  at  which  that  confederation  aimed ; 
namely,  the  enabling  the  states  to  act  as  one  nation 
in  their  foreign  affairs,  and  securing  the  several  states 
and  their  individual  inhabitants  against  injustice,  op 
pression,  or  injury,  on  the  part  of  other  states  or  their 
individual  inhabitants. 

It  might  indeed  become  necessary,  for  the  accom 
plishment  of  these  objects,  to  interfere  to  some  extent 
with  some  of  the  existing  laws  and  institutions  of  the 
states,  or  at  least  to  reserve  to  the  authorities,  to  be 
created  by  the  new  constitution,  the  power  of  doing 
so  ;  and  under  the  plan  adopted  of  submitting  that 
constitution  to  be  separately  ratified  by  each  of  the 
states,  any  alterations  so  made  or  authorized  would 
rest  on  the  same  basis  of  popular  consent  with  the 
state  constitutions  themselves.  But  this  interference 
with  state  constitutions  or  state  laws,  any  interference 
in  any  shape  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the  states,  was 
a  power  to  be  very  daintily  exercised,  especially  in  its 
application  to  particular  cases,  as,  otherwise,  any  con 
stitution  which  the  convention  might  form  would  be 
sure  of  being  rejected. 

Thus  the  Federal  convention  had  chiefly  to  do 
with  the  people  of  America,  not  in  their  character  as 
individuals  about  to  enter  into  a  primary  political 
organization,  but  in  their  character  as  inhabitants  of 
certain  states  already  constituted  and  organized.  Their 


230  DESPOTISM 

rights  as  inhabitants  of  each  particular  state  it  be 
longed  to  the  state  governments  to  settle  :  the  Fed 
eral  constitution  had  only  to  declare  what  should  be 
their  additional  and  supplementary  rights  as  citizens 
and  inhabitants  of  the  confederacy. 

It  was  from  this  view  of  the  work  before  them  that 
the  convention  omitted  to  prefix  to  the  Federal  Con 
stitution  any  general  Bill  of  Rights — an  omission 
much  complained  of  by  those  who  opposed  its  adop 
tion.  Slavery  in  the  states,  under  this  view  of  the 
subject,  was  a  matter  with  which  the  convention  was 
not  called  upon  directly  to  interfere,  and  which,  in 
deed,  could  not  be  directly  interfered  with  without 
exposing  the  proposed  constitution  to  certain  rejec 
tion.  It  did,  however,  come  before  the  convention 
incidentally;  and  the  question  which  we  now  have 
to  consider  is,  Whether,  in  dealing  with  it  thus  inci 
dentally,  the  Federal  constitution  has  acknowledged 
the  legal  existence  of  slavery  in  any  such  way  as  to 
bind  the  confederacy. 

The  first  article  in  the  Federal  constitution  relied 
upon  by  those  who  maintain  the  affirmative  on  this 
point  is  that  which  determines  the  ratio  of  repre 
sentation  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  That 
article,  indeed,  is  frequently  spoken  of  as  though  it 
were  the  great  compromise  ;  the  fundamental  conces 
sion  upon  which  the  .constitution  was  based.  But 
this  was  not  by  any  means  the  case.  The  great  dif 
ficulty  that  occurred  at  the  outset  was,  to  reconcile 
the  pretensions  of  the  larger  and  the  smaller  states. 
The  smaller  states  insisted  upon  that  political  equality 
which  they  already  possessed  under  the  articles  of 
confederation  ;  the  larger  states  maintained  that  repre 
sentation  in  the  national  legislature  ought  to  be  based 
on  "  wealth  and  numbers."  A  resolution  to  that  ef 
fect,  as  to  both  branches  of  the  legislature,  having  been 
carried  by  the  larger  states,  the  smaller  states  threat 
ened  to  quit  the  convention  ;  and  this  result  was  only 
prevented  by  a  concession — recommended  by  a  com 
mittee  of  one  from  each  state,  to  whom  the  subject 


IN    AMERICA. 


was  referred,  and  which  was  finally  adopted  by  the 
convention  —  yielding  to  the  small  states  an  equal  rep 
resentation  in  one  branch  of  the  national  legislature, 
namely,  in  the  Senate,  in  which  each  state,  large  or 
small,  was  to  have  two  delegates. 

This  was  the  great  compromise  :  the  particular 
ratio  of  representation  to  be  adopted  in  the  other 
branch  was  quite  a  subordinate  matter.  Yet,  though 
subordinate,  it  was  interesting  and  important.  One 
party,  headed  by  Gouverneur  Morris,  wished  to  leave 
the  ratio  of  representation  in  the  lower  house  entirely 
to  the  discretion  of  Congress,  with  the  avowed  object 
of  enabling  the  existing  states  to  retain  a  political 
ascendency  over  such  new  states  as  might  be  admit 
ted  into  the  Union.  But  this  was  objected  to  as 
unjust,  and  it  became  necessary  to  fix  upon  some 
precise  rule  of  distribution.  There  was  a  general 
agreement  that  this  distribution  should  be  regulated 
by  "  wealth  and  numbers  ;  "  numbers  might  easily  be 
ascertained  by  a  census  ;  but  how  was  wealth  to  be 
measured  ? 

This  was  a  point  upon  which,  under  the  existing 
confederation,  difficulties  had  already  occurred.  In 
framing  the  articles  of  confederation  it  had  been  pro 
posed  —  on  the  ground  that  population,  on  the  whole, 
was  the  best  practicable  test  of  wealth,  and  ability 
to  pay  taxes  —  to  distribute  the  charges  of  the  war, 
and  other  common  expenses,  among  the  states  in 
proportion  to  their  population.  But  the  southern 
states  had  strongly  objected  to  that  arrangement, 
alleging  that  the  labor  of  their  slaves  was  far  less  pro 
ductive  than  the  labor  of  the  same  number  of  north 
ern  freemen  ;  and  the  value  of  buildings  and  culti 
vated  lands,  to  be  ascertained  by  an  appraisement 
made  by  the  authorities  of  each  state,  was  finally 
adopted  as  the  basis  of  taxation  and  pecuniary  lia 
bility.  But  such  an  appraisement  was  found  liable  to 
great  difficulties,  expenses,  delays,  and  objections; 
very  few  states  had  made  it;  and  Congress,  since  the 
peace,  by  a  concession  to  the  slave-holders,  and  an 


232  DESPOTISM 

admission  of  the  wealth-producing  inefficiency  of 
slaves  as  compared  with  freemen,  had  proposed  to 
amend  the  articles  of  confederation  by  substituting 
as  the  basis  of  taxation,  and  of  the  distribution  among 
the  states  of  the  expenses  of  the  Revolutionary  war, 
"the  whole  number  of  white  and  other  free  citizens 
and  inhabitants  of  every  age,  sex,  and  condition,  in 
cluding  those  bound  to  servitude  for  a  term  of  years, 
and  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons  not  comprehended 
in  the  foregoing'  description ; "  and  this  proposed 
amendment,  agreed  to  in  Congress  after  a  good 
deal  of  higgling  between  the  northern  and  southern 
members  as  to  the  relative  productiveness  of  free  and 
slave  labor,  had  been  already  acceded  to  by  eleven 
out  of  the  thirteen  states.  The  question  of  the  meas 
ure  of  wealth  as  the  basis  of  representation  being  now 
raised  in  the  convention,  the  same  compromise  was 
suggested  there ;  and,  having  first  agreed  that  repre 
sentation  and  direct  taxation  should  go  together,  it 
was  finally  arranged,  and  so  it  now  stands  in  the  Fed 
eral  constitution,  that  the  number  of  representatives 
from  each  state  shall  be  determined  "  by  adding  to  the 
whole  number  of  free  persons,  including  those  bound 
to  service  for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding  Indians 
not  taxed,  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons" 

The  question  then  is,  whether  the  phrase  three  fifths 
of  all  other  persons  recognizes  the  validity  of  the  slave 
laws  of  any  particular  state,  and  affords  a  sufficient 
basis  for  those  laws  to  stand  upon,  notwithstanding 
their  original  defects  already  pointed  out.  Let  us  ob 
serve,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  validity  of  those  laws 
was  not  of  the  least  consequence  in  settling  the  point 
under  consideration,  to  wit,  the  productiveness  of  the 
industry — in  other  words,  the  relative  wealth — of  the 
several  states.  Whether  the  negroes  of  Virginia,  for 
instance,  were  held  in  slavery  by  law  or  against  law, 
made,  in  that  point  of  view,  no  difference.  Suppose, 
for  example,  (as  we  hold,)  that  they  were  illegally  de 
prived  of  their  liberty;  the  illegality  of  their  servitude 
would  not  increase  their  industry,  nor  the  wealth  of 


IN    AMERICA. 

the  state,  so  as  to  entitle  her  whole  population  to  be 
counted  in  determining  her  representation.  What 
the  constitution  had  to  deal  with,  in  settling  this 
distribution  of  representation,  was  a  question  of  ex 
ternal  fact,  not  a  question  of  law  or  right.  The 
question  of  the  individual  rights  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  states  was  one  over  which  this  article  re 
quired  the  assumption  of  no  control.  Their  con 
dition  in  fact,  not  their  condition  in  law,  was  the 
real  point  according  to  which  the  distribution  was  to 
be  regulated. 

But  even  in  referring  to  the  matter  of  fact  great 
caution  was  used.  "  The  question  of  slavery  in  the 
states,"  said  Gerry,  in  reference  to  another  point  to 
be  presently  considered,  "  ought  not  to  be  touched, 
but  we  ought  to  be  careful  not  to  give  it  any  sanc 
tion."  Madison  thought  it  wrong  to  admit  into  the 
constitution  "the  idea  that  there  could  be  property 
in  men ;"  and  in  his  report  of  the  doings  of  that  con 
vention,  to  which  we  are  mainly  indebted  for  what 
we  know  of  it,  he  represents  the  whole  phraseology 
of  the  instrument  to  have  been  carefully  settled  in 
accordance  with  that  view.  Thus,  in  the  original 
draft  of  the  clause  above  cited,  instead  of  bound  to 
service,  the  phrase  bound  to  servitude  had  been  used, 
following  in  this  respect  the  proposed  amendment  to 
the  articles  of  confederation  from  which  the  idea  of 
the  Federal  ratio  was  derived ;  but  servitude  was 
struck  out,  and  service  substituted,  as  Madison  in 
forms  us,  because  servitude  seemed  to  be  only  appro 
priate  to  express  the  condition  of  slavery. 

It  is  fair  enough  to  conclude  that  the  "  other  per 
sons,''  referred  to  in  this  article,  were  those,  held  as 
slaves  in  the  several  states.  But  the  constitution 
takes  care  not  to  commit  itself  by  calling  them  slaves, 
nor  by  using  any  term  that  would  seem  to  pass 'a 
judgment  on  the  legal  character  or  particular  legal 
incidents  of  their  condition.  That  remained  what  it 
was  ;  this  article  did  not  affect  it  in  any  way ;  and  if 
the  laws  of  the  states  fail,  as  we  maintain,  to  give  any 
20* 


234  DESPOTISM 

legal  authority  to  those  who  claim  to  be  masters,  they 
will  surely  look  for  it  in  vain  in  this  article  of  the  Fed 
eral  constitution. 

When  the  Federal  convention,  in  tne  course  of  its 
labors,  arrived  at  the  clauses  investing  Congress  with 
the  power  to  regulate  navigation  and  foreign  com 
merce,  a  new  occasion  for  compromise  arose.  Ten 
states  out  of  the  thirteen  had  already  prohibited  the 
importation  of  slaves  from  abroad,  and  if  the  Federal 
government  were  invested  with  unlimited  control  over 
the  intercourse  with  foreign  countries,  it  was  plain 
enough  that  one  of  its  first  acts  would  be  the  pro 
hibition  of  the  African  slave  trade. 

For  this  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  were  not  pre 
pared  ;  and  the  opinion  was  very  warmly  and  confi 
dently  expressed  by  their  delegates,  that  such  an  un 
limited  power  conferred  upon  Congress  would  insure 
in  those  states  the  rejection  of  the  constitution.  To 
avoid  this  result,  and  to  induce,  also,  the  southernmost 
states  to  concede  this  power  over  commerce,  to  which 
in  common  with  all  the  merely  agricultural  states,  they 
had  several  other  objections,  a  provision  was  inserted, 
"  that  the  emigration  or  importation  of  such  persons 
as  any  of  the  states  now  existing  shall  think  proper 
to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  Congress  prior  to 
the  year  1808  ;  but  a  tax  or  duty  may  be  imposed  on 
such  importation  not  exceeding  ten  dollars  for  each 
person." 

Observe  in  this  clause  the  same  cautious  phrase 
ology  as  in  that  already  discussed.  As  to  the  legal 
character  or  condition  of  the  persons  so  to  be  admit 
ted,  nothing  is  said.  There  is  not  the  slightest  impli 
cation  that  the  constitution  assented  in  any  way  that 
any  of  the  persons  so  introduced  into  the  states  should 
be  held  in  slavery.  If  that  was  done,  it  could  only 
be  on  the  responsibility  of  those  who  did  it,  and  of  the 
states  that  allowed  it.  The  constitution  did  not  as 
sent  to  it,  and  by  the  power  which  it  reserved  to  Con 
gress, — all  the  power  which  was  possible  under  the 


IN    AMERICA.  235 

circumstances, — it  secured  the  right,  after  the  lapse 
of  twenty  years,  of  preventing  the  possibility  of  such 
an  occurrence.  But  for  this  right,  thus  reserved  to 
the  Federal  government,  there  is  every  reason  to  be- 
Jieve  that  in  all  the  states  south  of  Virginia  the 
foreign  slave  trade  would  be  now  vigorously  prose 
cuted.  The  concession  made  to  Georgia  and  the 
Carolinas  was  temporary  and  limited  ;  the  point  car 
ried  was  of  a  permanent  character. 

There  still  remains  one  other  clause  of  the  constitu 
tion  relied  upon  as  sanctioning  slavery  in  the  states. 
"  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state, 
under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall, 
in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor ;  but  shall  be 
delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  ser 
vice  or  labor  may  be  due."  It  may  be  worth  while 
to  notice  that  in  the  article  now  under  consideration, 
the  term  service  is  employed — "  no  person  held  to 
service  or  labor ; "  whereas,  according  to  the  distinc 
tion  above  quoted  from  Madison,  the  term  servi 
tude  would  have  been  the  proper  one,  had  the 
clause  been  expressly  intended  for  the  case  of  ref 
ugee  slaves.  But,  without  dwelling  on  this  distinc 
tion,  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  refer  to  the 
pointed  difference  between  this  and  the  apportion 
ment  clause,  in  the  express  reference  which  this 
clause  makes  to  law.  Practice,  usage,  fact  merely, 
is  not  sufficient,  but  law  is  required.  "  No  person 
held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state,  under  the  laws 
thereof"  &c.  The  question,  then,  whether  this  clause 
stipulates  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves,  is  entirely 
dependent  on  the  previous  question  whether  there  is 
any  lawful  slavery  in  any  of  the  states — a  question 
upon  which  this  clause  expresses  no  opinion,  and 
throws  not  the  slightest  light  whatsoever.  If  there  be 
any  such  slavery,  it  must  exist  by  virtue  of  state 
laws,  laws  complete  and  authoritative  in  themselves  ; 
for  whatever  might  have  been  the  intention,  or  what- 


236  DESPOTISM 

ever  may  be  the  legal  effect  of  this  clause,  it  surely 
neither  intended  to  give,  nor  can  it  have  any  effect  to 
give,  a  legal  or  rightful  character  to  any  claims  of  ser 
vice  not  previously  rightful  and  legal. 

From  numerous  recent  speeches,  published  opin 
ions,  and  other  apologies  for  the  fugitive  slave  act  of 
1850,  one  might  be  led  to  imagine  that  the  surrender 
of  fugitive  slaves  had  been  one  of  the  great  questions 
on  which  the  Federal  convention  had  divided,  and 
which,  as  an  indispensable  condition  of  union,  it  had 
become  necessary  to  settle  by  a  solemn  compromise 
embodied  in  the  article  here  under  consideration.  To 
show  how  utterly  fabulous  these  statements,  so  derog 
atory  to  the  convention  and  to  the  nation,  are,  we 
subjoin,  from  Madison's  Report  of  the  Debates  of  the 
Convention,  all  that  is  known  of  the  history  of  this 
clause  ;  merely  premising,  what  seems  to  be  some 
times  forgotten,  that  the  Union  did  not  originate 
with  the  convention,  but  had  been  established  by  the 
Articles  of  Confederation  ratified  by  all  the  states  some 
years  before — articles  which  the  convention  had  met 
to  amplify  and  amend  so  as  to  give  greater  efficiency 
to  the  central  administration. 

After  warm  and  protracted  debates,  and  the  com 
promise,  as  already  briefly  mentioned,  of  two  very 
exciting  questions — one,  that  of  the  relative  political 
weight  in  the  general  government  to  be  allowed  to 
the  great  and  small  states,  which,  by  the  articles  of 
confederation,  possessed  an  equal  voice  ;  the  other  as 
to  ratio  of  representation  in  the  lower  House, — for  the 
third  of  the  three  great  compromises,  that  relating  to 
the  importation  for  twenty  years  of  such  persons  as  any 
of  the  states  might  see  fit  to  allow,  did  not  take  place 
till  a  subsequent  stage  of  proceedings, — the  conven 
tion  came  at  length  to  certain  resolutions  embodying 
the  result  of  its  previous  discussions  and  compro 
mises,  and  supplying  the  rough  material  of  the  consti 
tution  as  subsequently  adopted.  These  resolutions, 
which  did  not  embrace  any  more  than  the  articles 


IX    AMERICA. 


237 


of  confederation,  any  thing  on  the  subject  of  fugi 
tives,  whether  from  justice  or  labor,  were  referred 
to  a  committee  of  detail,  whose  report,  among  other 
specific  provisions,  now  first  suggested,  contained  an 
article  giving  to  the  citizens  of  each  state  all  the 
privileges  of  citizens  in  the  several  states,  and  an 
other,  providing  for  the  mutual  surrender  by  the  states 
of  fugitives  from  other  states  charged  with  treason, 
felony,  or  high  misdemeanor.  The  first  of  these 
articles  coming  up  for  debate,  General  Charles  C. 
Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  expressed  himself  not 
satisfied  with  it.  "  He  seemed  to  wish  that  some 
provision  should  be  inserted  in  it  in  favor  of  property 
in  slaves."  Very  likely  he  had  in  his  head  a  provision 
as  to  the  states  similar  to  the  pretension  lately  set 
up  by  the  slave-holders  as  to  the  territories,  giving 
the  right  to  hold  slaves  into  whatever  state  the 
holder  might  choose  to  carry  them.  But  if  so, 
he  did  not  venture  upon  any  such  barefaced  prop 
osition  ;  and  the  article,  as  it  now  stands  in  the  con 
stitution,  was  adopted  by  the  votes  of  all  the  states 
present  except  South  Carolina  in  the  negative,  and 
Georgia  divided.  The  proposed  article  on  the  sub 
ject  of  fugitives  from  justice  coming  up  immediately 
after,  Butler,  another  South  Carolina  member,  moved 
"  to  require  fugitive  slaves  and  servants  to  be  deliv 
ered  up  like  criminals."  To  this,  Wilson,  of  Penn 
sylvania,  objected  "  that  it  would  require  the  executive 
of  the  state  to  do  it  at  the  public  expense."  Sherman, 
of  Connecticut,  added  that  "  he  saw  no  more  propri 
ety  in  the  public  seizing  and  surrendering  a  slave  or 
servant  than  a  horse."  With  a  view  to  some  sep 
arate  provision,  Butler  withdrew  his  proposition  ; 
but  the  next  day  offered  the  draft  of  a  clause, 
the  idea  of  which  was  evidently  derived  from  a  sim 
ilar  provision  in  an  ordinance  just  passed  by  the 
Continental  Congress,  which,  in  prohibiting  forever 
slavery  and  involuntary  servitude,  except  in  punish 
ment  of  crimes,  in  the  territory  north-west  of  the 
Ohio,  (lately  ceded  to  the  Union  by  the  states  of  Vir- 


238  DESPOTISM 

ginia,  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut,) 
had  also  provided  "  that  every  person  escaping  into 
the  same,  from  whom  labor  or  service  is  lawfully 
claimed  in  any  one  of  the  original  states,  such  fugi 
tive  may  be  lawfully  returned,  and  conveyed  to 
the  person  claiming  his  or  her  labor  as  aforesaid." 
Guided  evidently  by  this  precedent,  Butler  proposed, 
and  the  convention — in  compliance,  as  we  may  rea 
sonably  conjecture,  with  an  understanding  come  to 
out  of  doors — adopted  without  debate  or  dissent  an 
independent  proposition  in  the  following  terms  :  "  If 
any  person  bound  to  service  or  labor  in  any  of  the 
United  States  shall  escape  into  another  state,  he  or 
she  shall  riot  be  discharged  from  such  service  or 
labor  in  consequence  of  any  regulations  subsisting  in 
the  state  to  which  they  escape,  but  shall  be  delivered 
up  to  the  person  justly  claiming  their  service  or 
labor."  The  committee  on  style,  appointed  to  revise 
and  arrange  all  the  articles  agreed  on,  proposed  to 
amend  this  one  as  follows :  "  No  person  legally 
held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state,  escaping  into 
another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  regulations  subsist 
ing  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor ; 
but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due  ; "  but,  be 
fore  its  final  adoption,  the  phraseology  was  still  fur 
ther  altered,  and  it  was  brought  into  the  shape  in 
which  it  now  stands — in  compliance,  as  Madison  tells 
us,  with  the  wish  of  some  who  thought  the  word 
legally  equivocal,  and  favoring  the  idea  that  slavery 
was  legal  in  a  moral  point  of  view. 

Wholly  apart  from  any  application  of  this  clause 
to  the  case  of  runaway  slaves,  there  was  ample  mat 
ter  for  it  to  operate  upon,  not  only  in  apprentices  and 
minor  children  to  whose  labor  the  father  has  a  legal 
right,  but  in  those  indented  servants  who  had  consti 
tuted,  during  the  whole  of  the  colonial  times,  so  con 
siderable  a  part  of  the  population,  especially  in  the 
Middle  States,  and  whom,  as  their  importation,  in 
terrupted  by  the  war,  was  again  beginning  to  be 


IN    AMERICA.  239 

resumed,  the  convention  might  reasonably  have  ex 
pected  soon  to  become  as  numerous  as  ever.  As 
applying  to  apprentices,  children,  and  indented  ser 
vants,  the  article  in  question  confers  a  right  in  which 
the  citizens  of  all  the  states  may  share ;  viewed 
as  a  provision  for  the  surrender  of  runaway  slaves, 
it  assumes  an  unequal  and  exclusive  character,  con 
ferring  a  very  invidious  power  on  the  citizens  of  a 
part  only  of  the  states — a  character  not  to  be  found 
in  any  other  article  of  the  Federal  constitution,  and 
wholly  incompatible  with  its  whole  spirit. 

The  simple  state  of  the  fact  seems  then  to  be  this. 
A  clause  was  inserted  into  the  constitution  perfectly 
appropriate  though  there  had  not  been  a  slave  in. 
the  Union,  and  which  may  very  properly  stand  there 
after  slavery  shall  be  completely  abolished,  as  it  was 
the  general  expectation  in  the  convention  that  it  soon 
would  be.  But  in  framing  this  clause,  terms  were 
used  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  enable  the  courts, 
if  so  disposed,  constructively  to  include  under  it, 
during  the  temporary  existence  of  slavery,  the  case 
of  runaway  slaves — provided,  the  courts  should  be  of 
opinion  that  in  the  states  whence  the  fugitives  had 
fled,  slavery  existed  not  merely  as  a  fact,  but  "under 
the  laws  thereof."  In  this  clause,  so  much  vaunted 
as  a  Federal  recognition  and  indorsement  of  the  legal 
ity  of  slavery,  not  the  slightest  reference  even  to  the 
mere  fact  of  its  existence  can  be  found,  except  by  first 
taking  for  granted  the  very  point  which  it  is  so  often 
cited  to  prove,  viz.,  that  slavery  did  and  does  exist  in 
the  states  by  virtue  of  law.  (See  Appendix.) 

The  three  clauses  of  the  Federal  constitution  above 
considered  are  the  only  portions  of  that  instrument 
which  have  ever  been  set  up  as  giving  any  sanction 
to  slavery.  But,  so  far  from  finding  in  these  clauses 
any  such  sanction,  we  find,  on  the  contrary,  evidence 
of  a  fixed  determination  in  the  constitution  not  to 
yield  it.  They  contain  no  indorsement  of  the  slave 
laws  of  the  states ;  no  recognition  of  slavery  as  a 


240  DESPOTISM 

state  institution  ;  no  express  recognition  even  of  the 
bare  fact  of  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  much  less 
of  its  existence  as  an  institution  entitled  to  the  favor 
able  regard  and  protecting  care  of  the  Federal  gov 
ernment.  General  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  in 
the  course  of  the  debates  of  the  convention,  more 
than  once  asked  for  such  guaranty  for  slave  property ; 
but,  so  far  from  yielding  to  this  demand,  the  greatest 
care  was  taken  not  to  admit  into  the  constitution  "  the 
idea  that  there  could  be  property  in  men ;"  that  is  to 
say,  the  very  fundamental  idea  upon  which  the  whole 
slave  system  rests.  It  was  impossible  for  the  Federal 
constitution,  by  its  own  proper  vigor,  to  abolish  sla 
very,  or  to  make  its  abolition  one  of  the  conditions 
of  the  Federal  compact — for  on  such  conditions  no 
constitution  could  be  formed.  It  was  even  necessary 
to  take  into  account,  in  several  of  its  provisions,  the 
actual,  but,  as  it  was  hoped  and  expected,  temporary, 
existence  of  slavery.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
greatest  care  was  had  not  to  give  any  sanction  to  a 
practice  so  inconsistent  with  those  natural  rights  upon 
which  all  the  American  constitutions  professed  to  be 
founded,  nor  indeed  even  to  recognize,  except  by  re 
mote  and  obscure  implication,  its  bare  existence  as 
a  fact.  The  utmost  length  to  which  the  members  of 
the  convention  would  go,  was  a  silent  toleration  of  sla 
very  as  it  existed;  leaving  it  to  be  disposed  of — and, 
as  the  convention  expected,  to  be  speedily  abolished — 
by  the  states  themselves.  They  were  not  anti-slavery 
men  in  that  sense  which  makes  hostility  to  slavery 
paramount  to  ail  other  considerations  ;  but,  so  far  as 
an  extreme  dislike  of  that  system,  and  a  hearty  wish 
for  its  speedy  extinction,  could  go,  the  majority  of 
them  wore  decidedly  anti-slavery  men  ;  and  the  consti 
tution,  and  especially  the  amendments  to  it  subse 
quently  adopted,  contain  many  provisions  very  incon 
sistent  with  the  existence  of  slavery. 

This  view  of  the  Federal  constitution  corresponds 
very  nearly  with  the  view  taken  of  it,  both  north  and 
south,  for  many  years  subsequent  to  its  adoption.  It 


IN    AMERICA.  241 

is  only  within  a  recent  period  that  the  idea  has  been 
set  up,  that  the  "  compromises  of  the  constitution  " 
include  the  recognition  of  slavery  as  an  institution 
of  the  statfcs,  or  some  of  them,  entitled  to  protection 
and  support.  Still  more  recent  is  the  doctrine  that 
the  distinguishing  trait  of  "  nationality  "  among  us 
is  the  recognition  and  support  of  the  system  of  sla 
very,  and  zeal  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves.  Not 
only  does  the  Federal  constitution,  so  far  from  recog 
nizing  slavery  in  any  such  character,  take  the  greatest 
pains  to  avoid  doing  so,  but  in  point  of  fact,  as  we 
maintain,  slavery  is  not  even  a  state  institution,  le 
gally  speaking,  but  a  mere  usurpation,  unsupported 
by  law,  and  in  that  character  certainly  not  entitled  to 
support  or  countenance  from  the  Federal  government 
or  any  other. 

But  if  the  Federal  constitution,  though  cautiously 
avoiding  to  commit  the  Union  to  the  support  of  sla 
very,  has  yet  left  the  determination  of  the  rights  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  states  to  the  state  authorities, 
— even  allowing  that  slavery  exists  by  usurpation  and 
not  by  law, — has  the  Federal  government  any  war 
rant  to  interfere,  in  any  way,  to  set  this  matter  right  ? 
Is  it  not  bound  to  wait  patiently  till  the  state  author 
ities  shall  themselves  do  it  ? 

Besides  the  specific  and  particular  powers  conferred 
upon  Congress  by  the  Federal  constitution,  that  body, 
by  a  clause  of  a  very  extensive  and  comprehensive 
character,  is  authorized  "  to  provide  for  the  common 
defence  and  general  welfare  of  the  United  States ; " 
at  least  in  all  the  cases  in  which  that  end  can  be  ac 
complished  by  the  expenditure  of  money.  Now,  sup 
pose  the  opinion  to  be  adopted,  by  the  majority  of 
the  people,  that  the  "common  defence  and  general 
welfare  of  the  United  States ; "  their  defence  against 
invasion  from  abroad,  and  insurrection  at  home ;  their 
welfare,  moral,  social,  and  economical,  demand  the 
termination  of  the  system  of  slavery ; — and,  in  this 
point  of  view,  it  seems  to  matter  but  little  whether 
21 


242  DESPOTISM 

we  consider  that  system  an  illegal  usurpation  or  a 
legal  institution  of  those  states  in  which  it  exists  ; — 
suppose  the  conclusion  to  be  arrived  at,  that  the  con 
tinued  existence  of  slavery,  whether  legal  or  not,  will 
be  fatal  to  the  success  of  that  great  democratic  ex 
periment  which  the  American  people  are  now  mak 
ing  ; — looking  at  the  matter  in  this  point  of  view,  has 
not  the  Federal  government  a  right  to  interfere,  and 
to  adopt  such  measures  as  seem  best  calculated  to 
stop  the  increase  of  this  evil,  and  to  bring  it  to  an 
end  ?  If,  under  the  clause  above  cited,  Congress  had 
power  to  buy  Louisiana,  to  buy  Florida,  to  annex 
Texas,  to  buy  California,  has  it  not  power,  under  the 
same  clause,  to  vote  money  towards  the  liberation  of 
some  millions  of  native-born  inhabitants  from  most 
cruel  servitude  ? 

It  is  true  that,  heretofore,  Congress  has  not  legis 
lated  with  this  intention.  It  is  also  true,  that,  on  a 
petition  signed  by  Franklin  and  others,  and  presented 
to  the  first  Congress,  praying  that  body  to  take  meas 
ures  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  conclusion  was 
arrived  at,  after  a  warm  debate,  that  Congress  had  no 
jurisdiction  over  the  subject  of  slavery  wkhin  the 
states.  But  this  decision,  binding  only  on  the  Con 
gress  that  made  it,  though  very  generally  acquiesced 
in  since,  still  remains  open  to  revision  ;  and  a  change 
of  circumstances,  changing  the  light  in  which  the 
question  presents  itself,  cannot  fail  to  have  a  seri 
ous  influence  on  the  decision  to  be  made  upon  it. 

When  the  first  Congress  met,  slavery  was  a  crime 
and  disgrace  in  which  the  whole  of  Christendom  was 
more  or  less  involved  ;  and  in  the  wars  which  the  na 
tions  of  Europe  carried  on  with  each  other,  their  prac 
tices  in  this  matter  were  mutually  respected.  When 
France,  England,  Spain,  and  Holland  invaded  each 
other's  colonies,  they  never  thought  of  putting  arms 
into  the  hands  of  the  slaves.  Early  in  our  Revolu 
tionary  war,  some  suggestion  was  thrown  out  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons,  that  the  slaves  in  the 
southern  states  might  be  liberated,  armed,  and  em- 


IN    AMERICA.  243 

ployed  to  keep  those  colonies  in  subjection  ;  but  the 
opposition,  headed  by  Burke  and  Fox,  denounced  the 
idea  as  barbarous,  atrocious,  and  infamous,  and  the 
suggestion,  never  seriously  entertained,  remained,  to 
a  great  extent,  unacted  upon.  Mason,  of  Virginia, 
feelingly  acknowledged  in  the  Federal  convention, 
that  if  the  British  had  availed  themselves,  as  they 
might  have  done,  of  the  aid  of  the  negroes,  the  war 
in  the  southern  states  might  have  had  a  very  different 
termination. 

During  the  last  war  with  England,  a  plan,  it  is  said, 
was  formed  for  occupying  the  peninsula  between  the 
Chesapeake  and  the  Delaware  with  a  British  army, 
turning  it  into  an  asylum  for  the  slaves  of  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  to  whom  liberty  was  to  be  proclaimed  ; 
organizing  and  training  a  black  army,  under  English 
officers,  and  marching  with  it  to  the  conquest  of  the 
South.  But  Britain  had  slaves  of  her  own  ;  it  would 
not  do  to  set  an  example  of  insurrection  and  of  liberty 
won  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet ;  and  this  brilliant 
scheme  was  consequently  abandoned.  Had  it  been 
energetically  undertaken,  something  more  might  have 
happened  than  the  burning  of  the  Capitol. 

Since  that  period  opinions  have  greatly  changed. 
England  has  abolished  slavery  throughout  her  wide 
spread  dominions.  France  has  also  abolished  it  in 
her  colonies.  All  Christendom  cries  out  against  it. 
Should  we  become  involved  in  war  with  France  or 
England,  especially  with  England, — and  war  with 
England  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  our  politics, 
—no  matter  what  the  cause  or  origin  of  the  war,  a 
proclamation  of  freedom  to  the  enslaved  would  sanc 
tify  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  It  would  become  the 
cause  of  humanity  against  despotism — a  despotism 
the  more  hateful  from  its  attempt  to  cloak  itself  with 
the.  name  of  democracy,  and  from  its  audacious  efforts 
to  trample  out  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man  in 
the  very  states  by  which  that  doctrine  was  first  pro 
claimed  as  the  basis  of  political  organization.  The 
enemy  would  strike  us  in  our  vital  parts,  and  Chris- 


244  DESPOTISM 

tendom  would  honor  and  applaud  the  blow.  Under 
these  circumstances,  will  not  due  regard  to  the  "  com 
mon  defence"  justify  Congress  in  adopting  a  course 
of  legislative  policy  such  as  may  narrow,  limit,  re 
strict,  and  tend  to  the  extinction  of  a  source  of  weak 
ness  which  no  provision  of  forts  and  steam  frigates 
can  guard  against? 

The  "welfare  of  the  United  States,"  their  internal 
well-being,  apart  from  any  dangers  from  without,  and 
more  especially  the  welfare  of  the  slave  states  them 
selves,  seem  to  call  still  louder  for  Congressional 
interference.  The  perception  of  the  evils  of  slavery 
has,  till  recently,  been  confined  to  a  speculative  few 
— a  class  of  persons  more  inclined  to  think  than  to 
act,  and  disabled,  by  the  small  ness  of  their  number, 
from  any  effectual  political  action.  But  sensibility  to 
those  evils,  especially  to  the  obstacles  which  the  exist 
ence  of  slavery  opposes  to  the  further  extension  of  the 
principles  of  equality  and  justice  even  in  their  appli 
cation  to  the  free, — thanks  to  the  efforts  and  labors 
of  those  known  as  Abolitionists, — is  now  beginning 
to  penetrate  the  mass,  and  to  find  representatives  and 
an  expression  in  the  legislatures  of  the  free  states,  and 
even  in  Congress.  When  a  majority  in  Congress 
come  to  be  thoroughly  impregnated  with  these  ideas ; 
when  they  come  to  look  upon  slavery,  not  merely  as 
an  evil,  a  calamity,  a  thing  to  be  lamented  and  regret 
ted,  but  as  a  fatal  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  our  free 
institutions,  a  consuming  cancer  eating  into  the  heart 
of  our  liberties,  and  threatening  the  extinction  of  those 
principles  upon  which  our  constitutions  are  founded  ; 
— perceiving  that  the  "  welfare  of  the  United  States  " 
is  seriously  compromised, — can  they  hesitate  to  come 
to  the  rescue  ?  Will  they  not  feel  themselves  called 
upon,  not  alone  by  humanity,  by  patriotism,  but  by 
the  very  letter  of  the  constitution  itself,  to  come  to 
the  rescue  ? 

But  even  grant  that  Congress  might  not  rightfully 
assume  to  legislate  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  inde 
pendently  of  and  adverse  to  the  states  to  be  directly 


IN    AMERICA.  24-) 

affected  by  such  legislation,  yet  their  consent  and  co 
operation  would  certainly  go  far  to  remove  this  obsta 
cle.  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  such  a  feeling  as 
we  have  above  referred  to  can  become  predominant 
in  Congress  without  penetrating,  also,  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  into  the  slave  states  themselves.  But  the 
evil  of  slavery  is  so  immense,  and  in  most  of  our 
slave  states  it  has  become  so  firmly  rooted, — swal 
lowing  up,  as  it  were,  the  state  and  the  church,  and 
enlisting  in  its  support  the  wealth,  the  talent,  the 
intelligence,  the  education,  the  ignorance,  the  preju 
dices,  and  the  passions  of  the  people, — that  to  wait 
for  those  states  to  take  the  leadership  in  the  abolition 
movement  would  be  absurd.  The  effects  of  such 
waiting  have  been  long  since  manifest.  The  abo 
lition  of  slavery  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  so  confi 
dently  expected  and  so  devoutly  wished  for  by  Henry, 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Mason,  Madison,  did  not 
take  place.  The  slave-holders  of  those  states  have, 
on  the  contrary,  added  to  the  injustice  of  slave-hold 
ing  the  cruelty  and  turpitude  of  slave-breeding  and 
slave-exporting ;  and,  in  diffusing  this  evil  over  the 
new  regions  of  the  south-west,  they  have  found  new 
inducements  for  continuing  it  among  themselves. 
For  the  purpose  of  extending  this  slave  market,  they 
do  not  hesitate  to  involve  the  Union  in  disgraceful 
wars  of  conquest.  Not  content  with  the  seizure  of 
Texas,  the  annexation  of  Cuba  is  already  suggested 
— to  which  Virginia  might  serve  as  a  new  Africa,  the 
slave  trade  to  that  coast  having  been  mainly  cut  off 
by  the  vigilance  of  the  English  cruisers.  This  let- 
alone  policy,  this  waiting  for  the  parties  most  imme 
diately  interested  to  take  the  lead,  came  near  proving 
fatal  even  to  Congress  itself.  The  right  of  petition, 
even  freedom  of  debate,  seemed  about  to  be  extin 
guished  in  that  body.  The  Federal  government  has 
put  itself  forward  as  the  champion  and  defender  of 
slavery  ;  the  antagonist,  on  this  point,  of  all  Christen 
dom.  What  a  change,  even  on  the  question  of  the 
African  slave  trade ! — that  very  government,  which 
21* 


246  DESPOTISM 

had  itself  once  proposed  a  mutual  right  of  search  on 
the  coast  of  Africa,  exerting  all  its  efforts,  and  not 
without  success,  to  defeat  a  treaty  of  that  sort  into 
which  Britain  had  induced  the  great  powers  of  Eu 
rope  to  enter!  The  thraldom,  thank  God,  into  which 
Congress  was  fast  sinking,  has,  by  the  steady  efforts 
of  a  few  noble  men,  at  last  been  partially  shaken  oft. 
The  attention  of  the  people  has  been  aroused  to  the 
question — Shall  the  Federal  government  be  a  slave- 
holding  or  an  anti-slave-holding  government?  Ex 
perience  seems  to  show  that  any  middle  ground, 
practically  speaking,  is  out  of  the  question.  If  the 
Federal  government  is  not  the  one,  it  must  be  the 
other. 

But  supposing  the   Federal   government  to    have 
power,  to  have  a  constitutional  right  to  act  in  this 
matter,    how  is  it  to   act?     Shall   Congress  employ 
force  ?    Shall  a  law  be  passed  declaring  the  right  of  the 
southern  negroes  to  freedom,  and  an  army  be  marched 
into  the  southern  states  to  enforce  such  law  ?     Such 
rude  and  violent  methods  of  effecting  political  changes 
correspond  neither  to  the  principles  of  our  institutions 
nor  to  the  enlightened  philosophy  of  the  present  age. 
It  is  not  the  office  of  the  Federal  government  to  abol 
ish  slavery  by  a  mere  act  of  its  own  authority  im 
posed  upon  the  slave-holding  states — an   act  which 
might  justly  be  denounced  as   arbitrary,  and  which 
the  whole  white  population  of  the  South  would  unite 
to  resist.     Great  evils  are  not  thus  to  be  got  rid  of  by 
a  single  blow.     To  be  effectually  and  peacefully  abol 
ished,  slavery  must  be  abolished  by  the  legislatures 
of  the  slave  states  themselves.     There  exist  in  all  the 
slave  states  ample  materials  for  a  party  ready  to  un 
dertake  that  great  and  illustrious  task.     Some  mov 
ing  of  the  dry  bones  has  been  of  late  discernible  ;  but, 
for  the  most  part,  the  anti-slavery  party  of  the  South, 
strong,  morally  and  intellectually,  and  by  no  means 
contemptible  in  point  of  numbers,  lies  at  this  moment 
prostrate,  completely   paralyzed    by   terror,   and    pre- 


IN    AMERICA..  247 

vented  thereby  from  any  movement  or  organiza 
tion  ;  held  down  in  as  pitiable  a  state  of  fear  and 
helplessness  as  can  well  be  imagined.  The  great 
excitement  of  1834 — the  alarm  then  raised  among 
the  slave-holders  by  the  symptoms  of  an  anti-slavery 
movement  at  the  North — caused  the  extemporaneous 
introduction  into  the  southern  states  of  a  suppressive 
system,  based  apparently  on  the  Spanish  inquisition — 
but  with  the  democratic  improvements  of  turning 
every  slave-holder  into  an  inquisitor,  and  the  misera 
ble,  uneducated  mob  of  the  southern  villages  and 
hamlets  into  spies  and  officers — the  proceedings,  with 
out  any  troublesome  or  tedious  formalities,  being  reg 
ulated  by  the  code  of  Lynch  law,  the  same  parties 
acting  in  the  fourfold  capacity  of  accusers,  witnesses, 
judges,  and  executioners.  That  same  despotic  spirit, 
indeed,  which  holds  the  slaves  in  subjection  without 
law  and  against  law,  does  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  set 
aside  all  the  most  sacred  principles  of  law,  all  our 
much-vaunted  safeguards  of  personal  security,  for  the 
sake  of  speedy  vengeance  upon  those  inclined  in  any 
way  to  question  its  authority.  Such,  indeed,  is  the 
just  retribution  of  nature.  Establish  despotism  over 
one  class  of  the  community,  and  it  will  soon  extend 
itself  over  all  the  others.  Give  your  neighbor  a  right 
to  tyrannize  over  slaves,  and  he  will  soon  assume  a 
right  to  tyrannize  over  you. 

Yet  it  is  to  this  down-trodden  party,  this  humbled 
and  silenced  party,  this  party  existing,  indeed,  as  yet 
only  in  embryo,  without  organization  or  self-conscious 
ness,  these  southern  anti-slavery  men,  that  we  must 
look  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  spirit  of  des 
potism  must  be  encountered  in  the  slave  states  them 
selves,  by  a  power  potent  enough  to  awe  it  down,  and 
keep  it  under ;  and  this  power  can  only  be  a  mass  of 
citizens  combined  together,  acting  in  concert,  and 
having  such  weight  of  social,  and  especially  of  po 
litical  influence,  that  it  shall  become  necessary  to 
respect  their  feelings,  their  opinions,  and  their  rights. 
Such  a  combination  must  be  formed  in  all  the  slave 


248  DESPOTISM 

states  before  the  first  effectual  steps  can  be  taken,  we 
do  not  say  towards  the  abolition  of  slavery  merely, 
but  even  towards  the  enforcement  of  the  rights  of 
those  nominally  free  ;  those  great  rights  of  free  dis 
cussion  and  a  free  press  which  no  despotism,  or 
would-be  despotism,  willingly  tolerates. 

Congress,  however,  or  the  friends  of  freedom  in 
Congress,  are  not  to  wait  till  such  a  party  rises  up. 
It  is  their  business  to  help  it  up,  to  reach  out  a 
hand  to  it,  on  every  possible  occasion.  Could  the 
immense  patronage  of  the  Federal  government  once 
be  directed  to  that  point,  we  may  judge  of  the  result 
likely  to  follow  by  the  effect  which  that  same  patron 
age  has  produced  at  the  North,  in  a  counter  direction. 
It  is  by  calling  upon  the  Federal  government,  on 
every  possible  occasion  that  occurs,  or  can  be  made 
to  occur,  to  abjure  all  responsibility  for  slavery  and 
all  countenance  of  it;  it  is  by  finding  and  making 
perpetual  occasions  to  point  out  the  evils  of  slavery 
in  particular  instances,  its  incompatibility  with  the 
"  general  welfare,"  and  the  obstacles  which  it  opposes 
to  the  "  common  defence  ; " — it  is  by  imitating  the  ex 
ample  of  steadfast  old  Cato,  and  .repeating  at  every 
opportunity,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  "I  think 
also  that  slavery  ought  to  be  abolished  ; " — such  are 
the  means  by  which  even  a  very  few  members  of  Con 
gress  may  effect  great  things  ;  not  indeed  by  way  of 
direct  legislation, — for  direct  legislation  constitutes, 
after  all,  but  a  small  part  of  the  influence  which  Con 
gress  exerts, — but  by  keeping  this  subject  constantly 
before  the  public  mind ;  enabling  and  compelling  the 
slave-holders  to  see  what  they  have  hitherto  so  obsti 
nately  shut  their  eyes  to;  and  what  is  of  more  im 
portance  yet,  giving  the  non-slave-holding  freemen  of 
the  South  an  opportunity  to  see  what  the  slave-hold 
ers  hitherto  have  so  dexterously  kept  out  of  their 
sight. 

Just  in  proportion  as  the  anti-slavery  party  increases 
in  Congress  ;  just  in  proportion  as  that  body  shall 
evince  symptoms  of  a  settled,  firm,  and  steady  oppo- 


IN    AMERICA.  249 

sition  to  slavery  ;  just  in  the  same  proportion  will  the 
southern  anti-slavery  men  be  encouraged  to  confess 
themselves,  first  to  themselves,  than  to  one  another, 
and  then  to  the  world.  Only  through  the  medium 
of  Congress,  and  the  Federal  government,  can  the 
anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  North  be  brought  into 
any  active  cooperation  with  the  anti-slavery  sentiment 
of  the  South  ;  and  surely,  until  northern  representa 
tives  of  non-slave-holding  constituencies  can  stand  up 
on  the  floor  of  Congress  and  boldly  speak  their  minds 
upon  the  subject,  and  secure  a  hearing  too,  it  is  quite 
too  much  to  expect  any  such  boldness,  or  any  such 
hearing,  in  the  legislature  of  any  slave-holding  state. 

It  needs,  as  we  believe,  only  this  free  discussion  to 
show  that  even  the  technical  legality  behind  which 
slavery  claims  to  entrench  itself  cannot  be  maintained. 
This  point  has  hitherto  been  conceded  to  the  slave 
holders,  hastily,  without  examination,  and,  as  we  be 
lieve,  without  reason.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that, 
although  the  people  of  the  southern  states  were  will 
ing,  and  a  large  majority  of  them  desirous,  to  allow 
slavery  to  continue  among  them  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  left  its  legality  to  rest  upon  the  enactments  and 
practice  of  the  colonial  times,  without  undertaking 
by  any  fundamental  act  of  sovereignty  on  their  part 
to  confer  any  new  or  additional  legality  upon  it.  The 
legality  of  American  slavery  rests,  then,  upon  a  colo 
nial  usage — a  usage  not  only  unsustained  by  the  Eng 
lish  law,  but,  in  several  most  important  points,  directly 
contradictory  to  it ;  a  usage  totally  incapable  of  fur 
nishing  any  legal  foundation  for  any  claim  of  right; 
a  usage  upon  which  neither  the  state  constitutions 
nor  the  Federal  constitution  undertake  to  confer  a 
legal  character;  and  upon  which,  indeed,  taking  into 
account  the  very  fundamental  principles  of  the  Amer 
ican  government,  they  could  not  confer  a  legal 
character. 

When  the  colonists  set  forth  in  their  Declaration 
of  Independence,  as  the  justification  and  basis  of  the 
stand  they  had  taken,  the  natural  Right  of  all  men  to 


250  DESPOTISM 

life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  they  must 
be  esteemed  as  pledging  themselves  to  the  world, 
and  to  each  other,  for  the  recognition  and  mainte 
nance,  of  that  right.  Nor  was  this  declaration  the  mere 
act  of  the  Continental  Congress,  whose  power  might 
be  disputed  ;  for  it  was  distinctly  and  solemnly  rat 
ified,  adopted,  and  confirmed  by  every  individual  state 
in  the  Union.  From  that  moment,  then,  it  was  a 
solemn  pledge  on  the  part  of  all  the  states,  and  a  tacit 
condition  of  the  Union,  that  slavery  should  be  done 
away  with  as  soon  as  possible.  By  adopting,  two 
years  before,  the  non-importation  agreement,  known 
as  the  American  Association,  the  states  had  already 
pledged  themselves  to  import  no  more  slaves ;  a 
pledge  from  which  they  were  never  released,  though 
the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  chose  afterwards  to  violate 
it,  and  to  insist  on  a  constitutional  permission  to 
continue  that  violation  for  twenty  years.  The  same 
understanding  as  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  prevailed 
when  the  Federal  constitution  was  adopted.  Slavery 
was  regarded  as  a  transitory  evil,  to  be  speedily  re 
moved,  and  the  greatest  care  was  taken  not  to  men 
tion  it  by  name,  nor  to  recognize  in  that  instrument 
any  such  idea  as  that  of  property  in  man. 

The  northern  states  have  waited  a  great  while,  pa 
tiently,  for  their  southern  neighbors  to  carry  out  their 
agreement.  If  the  conclusion  should  be  arrived  at, 
that  the  southern  states  are  unable  or  unwilling  to 
redeem  their  pledge,  certainly  the  least  wTe  of  the 
North  can  do  is,  to  proclaim,  every  where,  our  con 
viction  of  the  utter  illegality  of  this  accursed  institu 
tion,  and  of  the  bad  faith  of  the  South  in  prolonging 
its  existence. 

Nor,  indeed,  can  it  reasonably  be  expected  that  the 
men  of  the  North  will  stop  there.  The  abolition  of 
slavery,  not  to  mention  how  essential  it  is  to  the 
preservation  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  free,  is 
a  debt  due  from  the  United  States  to  the  memory  and 
honor  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers,  to  the  principles 
of  democracy,  to  human  nature  itself;  and  just  in 


IN    AMERICA.  251 

proportion  as  our  southern  brethren  shall  fail  to  take 
the  lead  in  this  inevitable  enterprise,  that  leadership 
must  of  necessity  devolve  on  us  of  the  North.  It 
has  only  been  by  professions  of  ultra  democracy,  of 
exceeding  respect  for  the  natural  rights  of  men,  and 
of  opposition  to  all  arbitrary  and  unnecessary  author 
ity,  that  the  slave-holding  body  have  been  enabled  to 
exercise  so  long-continued  and  so  decided  an  influ 
ence  over  our  national  politics.  The  time  has  now 
come — the  ascendency  of  democratic  ideas  having, 
under  southern  patronage,  been  firmly  established  at 
the  North,  and  the  domination  of  the  old  aristocrat- 
ical  cliques  completely  put  down — that  the  northern 
democracy  can  return  the  favor  by  aiding  the  south 
ern  states  in  the  substitution  of  a  democracy  like 
that  of  the  North,  in  place  of  those  slave-holding  oli 
garchies  by  which  the  entire  laboring  population  of 
the  South,  white  as  well  as  black,  has  hitherto  been 
held  in  such  entire  subjection.  And,  in  adopting 
such  a  course,  the  northern  democracy  will  consult 
not  more  the  spirit  of  their  own  policy  than  the  true 
intent  of  the  framers  of  the  Federal  constitution.  For 
whatever  disputes  may  be  raised  as  to  the  precise 
intent  of  the  framers  of  that  instrument  in  partic 
ular  clauses,  one  thing  at  least  is  certain, — whatever 
monstrous  assumptions  to  the  contrary  may  have 
lately  been  countenanced  in  quarters  where  more 
knowledge  and  better  feelings  might  naturally  have 
been  expected; — the  framers  of  the  constitution  never 
intended,  the  people  who  ratified  the  constitution 
never  intended,  to  found  a  slave-breeding  and  a  sla 
very-propagating  republic.  The  barest  suspicion  that 
the  constitution  could  operate  to  perpetuate  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  would  have  caused  its  indignant 
rejection  by  all  the  northern  and  by  a  part  of  the 
southern  states.  The  general  intent  of  the  framers 
of  the  constitution  is  clearly  and  comprehensively 
expressed  in  its  preamble,  by  which  its  objects  are 
declared  to  be,  "  To  form  a  more  perfect  union,  estab 
lish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for 


252  DESPOTISM 

the  common  defence,  promote  the  general  welfare, 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity."  Now,  to  which  of  these  great  objects 
has  not  the  existence  among  us  of  domestic  slavery 
proved  a  stumbling-block  from  the  day  the  first  Con 
tinental  Congress  met  down  to  the  current  moment? 
So  long  as  slavery  continues,  the  union  of  the  states 
never  can  be  perfected;  justice  is  but  an  empty  name; 
our  domestic  tranquillity  will  always  be  in  danger — 
and  that  even  less  from  the  slaves,  reluctantly  held  in 
bondage,  and  watching  an  opportunity  to  throw  off 
the  yoke,  than  from  the  idle,  turbulent,  hot-headed, 
arid  insolent  among  their  masters,  who,  not  content 
with  lynching  private  individuals,  and  even  sovereign 
states  of  the  Union  in  the  persons  of  their  representa 
tives,  threaten  separation  and  civil  war  whenever 
thwarted  in  any  of  their  pretensions.  What  aid  does 
the  institution  of  slavery  afford  to  the  common  de 
fence  ?  Officers,  perhaps,  but  neither  men  nor  money. 
As  to  securing  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves 
and  our  posterity,  the  slave-holders,  backed  by  the 
mercantile  interest  of  the  North,  in  which  they  have 
found  a  humble  but  zealous  ally,  have,  within  the 
last  fifteen  years,  made  not  less  than  two  desperate 
attempts  entirely  to  suppress  all  freedom  of  speech 
and  of  the  press,  and  to  make  universal  that  reign  of 
terror  so  vigorously  enforced  during  that  entire  period 
throughout  the  southern  part  of  the  Union  ! 

And  yet  those  who  labor  to  eradicate  this  lasting 
and  inevitable  source  of  discord,  this  eating  cancer 
of  our  liberties  and  peace,  are  accused  of  hostility  to 
the  union  of  the  states — and  that,  too,  by  a  set  of  po 
litical  pharisees,  who,  in  parading  their  anxiety  to 
carry  out  the  alleged  implied  intentions  of  the  framers 
of  the  constitution  as  to  the  return  of  runaway  ne 
groes,  do  at  best  but  pay  tithe  of  mint  and  cumin, 
while  they  wholly  neglect  those  weightier  matters, 
those  great  overruling  intentions,  not  implied,  alleged, 
made  out  by  construction,  or  discovered  by  a  resort 
to  contemporaneous  history,  but  proclaimed  in  the 


IN    AMERICA.  253 

preamble  to  the  constitution,  and  throughout  the 
whole  text  of  the  instrument — the  growth  of  the 
United  States  into  a  great,  united,  FREE  republic ! 

That  which  the  fathers  planned,  and  of  which  they 
laid  the  foundations,  building  upon  them  according 
to  the  measure  of  their  means  and  enlightenment,  it 
becomes  us  of  this  generation,  with  the  advantage 
of  far  superior  means,  and  greater  experience,  to  carry 
out  and  perfect. 

That  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  by  no  means  so 
impracticable  a  thing  as  many  represent,  and  that 
even  the  slave-holders  themselves  may,  by  a  reason 
able  regard  to  their  claims  to  pecuniary  indemnity, 
be  induced  heartily  to  concur  in  it,  an  attempt  will  be 
made  to  show  in  a  subsequent  treatise. 


SECTION    IV. 

The  Fugitive  Act  of  1850. 

IT  is  upon  the  clause  of  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  for  the  delivery  up  of  "  persons  held  to 
service  or.  labor  under  the  laws  "  of  any  state  escap 
ing  into  another,  that  the  fugitive  slave  act  (com 
monly  so  called)  of  1850  is  founded.  That  act,  how 
ever,  it  is  to  be  observed,  notwithstanding  its  popular 
title,  and  the  avowed  purpose  of  its  enactment,  says 
nothing,  any  more  than  the  constitution  itself,  in  di 
rect  terms,  about  slaves  or  slavery.  Its  application  to 
the  case  of  fugitive  slaves  proceeds  entirely  on  the  as 
sumption  that  slavery  exists  in  certain  of  the  states 
not  merely  in  fact  but  by  law,  so  that  under  the  de 
scription  of  persons  bound  to  service  and  labor  un 
der  state  laws  slaves  are  included — an  assumption 
which  judges  and  commissioners  may  declare  too 
plain  to  be  argued  about,  or  to  require  to  be  sustained 


254  DESPOTISM 

by  any  reasons,  but  which,  for  all  that,  may  be  entire 
ly  groundless  and  gratuitous,  as  we  have  already  at 
tempted  to  show. 

Wholly  independently,  however,  of  the  argument 
upon  that  point,  or  of  the  particular  application  of 
the  act  of  1850  to  the  case  of  runaway  slaves,  two 
distinct  sets  of  objections  have  been  taken  to  the  con 
stitutionality  of  that  act,  besides  many  others  to  its 
arbitrary  spirit,  and  its  grossly  evident  disposition  (so 
abundantly  illustrated  as  well  by  several  of  its  pro 
visions  as  by  many  of  the  proceedings  which  have 
taken  place  under  it)  to  sacrifice  the  rights  of  persons 
claimed  to  the  convenience  and  even  to  the  rascality 
of  persons  claimant. 

I.  The  ground  is  taken,  in  the  first  place,  that  this 
return  of  fugitives  from  labor  is  a  matter  which  be 
longs,  at  least  in  its  initiative,  wholly  and  exclusively 
to  the  authorities  and  tribunals  of  the  states,  and  with 
which  Congress  has  no  right  to  interfere,  nor  to  au 
thorize  any  body  else  to  interfere,  until  the  proceed 
ing  shall  have  resulted  in  a  suit  cognizable  by  the  Fed 
eral  tribunals.  The  intention  and  effect  of  the  clause 
in  the  Federal  constitution  respecting  fugitives  from 
labor  seems  to  be,  that  no  right  to  service  under  the 
laws  of  any  state  shall  be  defeated,  notwithstand 
ing  any  differences  of  local  law,  by  any  escape  into 
another  state ;  but  to  the  extent  of  recapturing  such 
fugitive, — and  if  the  services  to  which  he  is  bound  be 
of  such  a  nature  that  the  exaction  of  them  is  not  per 
mitted  under  the  laws  of  the  state  in  which  he  is 
found,  still,  of  holding  him  for  a  period  sufficient  for 
his  removal, — that  right  shall  be  recognized  and  en 
forced  by  the  tribunals  of  the  state  in  which  the  fugi 
tive  is  found;  the  proceedings  of  such  state  tribunals 
of  course  being  liable,  should  the  procedure  take  the 
form  of  a  judicial  contest  to  be  transferred  to  or  re 
viewed  by  the  Federal  courts,  under  the  general  juris 
diction  given  to  them  in  all  cases  arising  under  the 
Federal  constitution  and  laws,  there  to  be  proceeded 
with  according  to  the  general  methods  prescribed  in 


IN    AMERICA.  255 

the  judiciary  acts.  To  give  thus  to  a  South  Caroli 
nian,  for  instance,  claiming  service  or  labor  from  a 
fugitive  found  in  Massachusetts  as  due  to  him  under 
South  Carolina  law,  precisely  the  same  right  and  the 
same  means,  neither  more  nor  less,  to  reclaim  that 
fugitive,  which  a  Massachusetts  man  has  in  Massa 
chusetts  in  the  case  of  his  runaway  child  or  appren 
tice,  would  seem  to  be  quite  as  much  as  any  reasona 
ble  slave-holder  could  ask  ;  at  all  events  quite  as  much 
as  the  Federal  constitution  ever  intended  to  allow. 

According  to  this  view  of  the  matter,  no  special 
legislation,  whether  state  or  Federal,  respecting  fugi 
tives  from  one  state  into  another,  is  necessary,  nor  even 
allowable.  The  constitution  of  the  United  States 
being  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  recognized 
as  such  by  all  the  State  courts  and  authorities,  its 
provision  respecting  fugitives  is  quite  sufficient  to 
give,  in  each  state  of  the  Union,  through  the  agency 
.of  the  state  tribunals  and  state  authorities  in  the  first 
place,  or  if  they  fail  of  their  duty,  then  through  the 
agency  of  the  Federal  courts,  the  same  protection 
and  the  same  justice  alike  to  all  claimants  and  to 
all  fugitives,  to  whatsoever  state  they  may  belong,  or 
upon  the  laws  of  whatsoever  state  their  respective 
rights  may  be  based. 

Nor  is  this  view  of  the  case,  so  reasonable  and  sat 
isfactory  in  itself,  and  so  free  from  the  multifarious 
difficulties  and  objections  to  which  any  other  inter 
pretation  of  the  clause  in  question  is  exposed,*  want 
ing  in  support  from  the  most  respectable  quarters. 
That  Congress  has  no  power  to  legislate  for  the  re 
turn  of  fugitives  from  labor,  and  that  the  act  of  1793 
on  that  subject  (and  of  course  the  act  of  1850)  is 
unconstitutional,  was  elaborately  maintained  by  Chan 
cellor  Walworth,  of  New  York,  by  his  opinion  given 
in  the  New  York  Court  of  Errors  in  the  case  of  Jack 

*  "  If,  as  seems  to  be  admitted,  legislation  is  necessary  to  carry 
into  effect  the  object  of  the  constitution,  what  becomes  of  the  right 
when  there  is  no  law  on  the  subject  ? "  Opinion  of  Judge  Thomp 
son  in  Prigg  v.  Pennsylvania,  16  Peters  631. 


256  DESPOTISM 

v.  Martin,  (14  Wendall,  507) ;  and  even  Mr.  Webster, 
in  his  famous  7th  of  March  speech,  emphatically  de 
clared  himself  to  entertain  the  same  view.  "  I  have 
always  thought,"  such  are  his  words,  "  that  the  con 
stitution  addressed  itself  to  the  legislatures  of  the 
states,  or  to  the  states  themselves.  It  says  that  those 
persons  escaping  to  other  states  *  shall  be  delivered 
1  up,'  and  I  confess  I  have  always  been  of  the  opinion 
that  it  was  an  injunction  upon  the  states  themselves. 
When  it  is  said  that  a  person  escaping  into  another 
state,  and  coming,  therefore,  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  that  state,  shall  be  delivered  up,  it  seems  to  me 
the  import  of  the  clause  is,  that  the  state  itself,  in 
obedience  to  the  constitution,  shall  cause  him  to  be 
delivered  up.  That  is  my  judgment.  I  have  always 
entertained  that  opinion,  and  I  entertain  it  now.  But 
when  the  subject,  some  years  ago,  was  before  the  Su 
preme  Court,  the  majority  of  the  judges  held  that  the 
power  to  cause  fugitives  from  service  to  be  delivered 
up  was  a  power  to  be  exercised  under  the  authority 
of  this  (i.  e.,  the  .Federal)  government."  The  case 
here  alluded  to  is  that  of  Prigg  v.  Pennsylvania, 
(16  Peters,  539,)  of  which  we  shall  presently  have 
occasion  to  speak. 

The  necessity  failing,  of  any  legislation,  and  espe 
cially  of  any  Federal  legislation,  to  carry  into  effect 
the  clause  for  the  delivering  up  of  fugitives  from  labor, 
the  only  other  ground  on  which  any  such  Federal 
legislation  can  be  or  has  been  attempted  to  be  sus 
tained,  is  the  mere  ground  of  precedent — the  notion 
so  great  a  favorite  with  a  certain  class  of  lawyers, 
more  learned  than  profound,  that  usage  makes  law, 
or  rather,  that  the  law  is  to  be  determined  by  usage. 
It  is  said  that  the  right  of  Congress  to  legislate  on 
this  subject  cannot  now  be  questioned,  because  that 
right  was  exercised  by  the  second  Congress,  some 
sixty  years  ago,  and  has  ever  since  been  acquiesced 
in  ;  an  argument  that  seems  to  count  for  nothing  the 
adverse  opinions  of  such  lawyers  as  Walworth,  Web 
ster,  and  others  to  be  presently  mentioned. 


IN    AMERICA,  257 

The  advocates  of  this  estoppel  have  a  great  deal  to 
say  (see  Nelson's  opinion  in  Jack  v.  Martin,  in  the 
Supreme  Court  of  New  York,  12  Wendall,  311) 
about  the  large  number  of  members  of  the  Federal 
convention  who  sat  also  in  the  Congress  of  1793, 
and  of  the  great  and  special  knowledge  which  they, 
and  the  other  members  of  that  Congress,  must  be 
supposed  to  have  had  of  the  intimate  intentions  of 
the  framers  of  the  Federal  constitution,  and  of  the 
true  meaning  and  proper  interpretation  of  that  instru 
ment.  But  to  all  this  there  are  two  very  sufficient 
answers.  Whatever  knowledge  there  might  have 
been  in  the  Congress  of  1793  of  the  secret  history 
of  the  Federal  constitution,  and  of  the  expectations, 
hopes,  wishes,  or  intentions  of  the  individuals  con 
cerned  in  framing  it,  or  procuring  its  ratification,  we 
of  the  present  day — since  we  have,  besides  the  text  of 
the  constitution,  the  labors  of  more  than  sixty  years 
bestowed  by  the  courts  and  the  bar  upon  its  interpre 
tation  and  exposition — are  in  a  vastly  better  position 
for  apprehending  its  real  legal  purview  and  effect 
than  the  men  of  1793,  or  even  than  the  very  men 
that  made  it,  who,  in  all  the  questions  that  speedily 
arose  as  to  its  interpretation,  were  even  less  unani 
mous  than  the  expositors  of  to-day.  In  point  of  fact, 
the  members  of  the  Federal  convention,  of  whom 
many  subsequently  sat  in  the  early  Congresses,  seem 
in  general  to  have  had  but  a  very  imperfect  and  con 
fused  idea  of  the  real  nature  of  the  national  govern 
ment  which  they  had  created,  and  of  its  true  relations 
to  the  governments  of  the  states.  The  idea  of  two, 
or  rather  of  sixteen  coordinate  governments  so  inti 
mately  intertwined,  and  yet  each,  in  its  own  sphere, 
sovereign  and  independent,  was  at  tirst  very  difficult 
to  be  apprehended,  at  least  in  its  consequences; 
arid  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  legislation  of 
the  early  Congresses — and  the  fugitive  act  of  1793 
affords  an  instance  of  it — proceeded  upon  the  false 
idea  that  in  the  execution  of  its  own  powers,  Con 
gress  and  the  Federal  executive  had  a  right  not 
22* 


258  DESPOTISM 

only  to  employ  but  to  command  the  officers  of  the 
states. 

Bat,  in  the  second  place,  quite  apart  from  the  errors 
into. which  a  body  no  better  suited  for  such  purposes 
than  Congress  would  be  likely  to  fall,  especially  at 
first,  as  to  the  extent  of  its  authority, — the  whole  the 
ory  of  the  scope  of  Federal  legislation,  upon  which 
those  who  had  the  control  of  the  early  Congresses 
proceeded,  was  subsequently  greatly  modified.  The 
Federalists,  as  they  called  themselves,  the  consolida- 
tionists,  as  they  were  considered  by  their  opponents, 
who  controlled  the  early  Congresses,  and  who,  like 
the  present  Union  men,  so  called,  professed  a  special 
attachment  to  the  constitution  and  the  Union,  pro 
ceeded  upon  the  idea  of  making  a  strong  national 
government;  indeed,  of  drawing  within  the  range  of 
Federal  legislation  every  thing  that  might  be  most 
conveniently  so  dealt  with — that  is  to  say,  about 
every  thing.  The  Democratic  or  State  Rights  party 
held,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  legislation  of  Con 
gress  ought  to  be  strictly  limited  to  cases  expressly 
authorized  by  the  constitution.  Such  was  the  doc 
trine  so  emphatically  set  forth  in  the  famous  Resolu 
tions  of  '98 ;  and  such,  at  this  moment,  is  the  doc 
trine  not  only  ostentatiously  professed  by  those  at 
the  head  of  the  Federal  government,  but  which,  in  a 
certain  modified  form  at  least,  has  obtained — upon  all 
questions  not  involving  the  convenience  of  slave-hold 
ers — pretty  entire  possession  even  of  the  United  States 
tribunals.  But  surely  it  cannot  be  expected,  without 
counting  more  fully  than  facts  would  seem  yet  to 
warrant  upon  the  stupidity  and  patience  of  the 
North,  that  a  liberal  interpretation  of  the  powers 
of  Congress,  rejected  in  all  cases  in  which  the  indus 
trial  and  pecuniary  interests  of  the  North  have  been 
thought  to  be  concerned,  will  be  tolerated  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  propping  up  the  crumbling  system  of 
southern  despotism.  It  was  natural  enough  for  Mr. 
Webster,  both  as  an  ancient  Federalist  and  as  a  modern 
Union  man,  to  yield  up  as  he  did,  in  his  7th  of  March 


IN    AMERICA,  259 

speech,  his  own  deliberate  opinion,  long  held,  and 
still  unaltered,  to  the  formal  judgment  even  of  a 
mere  majority  of  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States, — for  it  was  {he  policy  of  the 
old  Federal,  as  it  now  is  of  our  modern,  self-styled 
Union  party,  (more  commonly  known  as  Silver-Grays, 
or  Old  Fogies,)  to  exalt  that  Supreme  Court  into  a 
final  arbiter,  if  not  indeed  an  infallible  judge,  not 
in  private  controversies  only,  but  in  all  political  ques 
tions  also,  involving  the  interpretation — as  what  po 
litical  question  does  not  ? — ol  the  Federal  constitu 
tion  and  laws.  But  to  see  Franklin  Pierce,  who, 
during  his  six  years'  service  in  the  Senate,  sat  a  silent, 
humble,  admiring  disciple  at  the  feet  of  Calhoun  ; 
who,  as  presidential  candidate,  was  the  choice,  be 
cause  the  submissive  catechumen,  of  the  Democratic 
State  Rights  party,  whose  doctrines  he  took  speedy 
occasion,  after  his  election,  to  glorify  and  endorse  ; 
and  who,  as  president,  professes  to  walk  in  the  foot 
steps  of  Andrew  Jackson,  he  who  boldly  claimed  for 
himself,  and  for  all  the  coordinate  branches  of  the  gov 
ernment,  the  right  to  act  under  the  constitution  as 
they  understood  it,  even  in  spite  of  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court;  to  see  this  Democratic  State  Rights 
president  inconsistently  striking  in  with  that  con 
sistent  old  Federalist,  Mr.  Webster,  and  running  in 
his  company,  on  behalf  of  slavery,  into  the  most  ultra 
Federal  extremes — this  is  a  spectacle  rather  trying  to 
those  who  wish  to  regard  the  rising  leaders  of  the 
young  democracy  of  the  North  as  at  least  tolerably 
true  and  sincere  men,  and  not,  as  their  political  op 
ponents  so  indiscriminately  represent  them,  mere  un 
principled  scamps  in  pursuit  of  office,  ready  to  profess 
and  to  do  every  thing  tending  thereto. 

II.  But  even  admitting  that  the  surrender  of  fugi 
tives  from  labor  is  a  matter  exclusively  within  the 
scope  of  Federal  authority,  and  not  only  a  proper  sub 
ject  for  the  legislation  of  Congress,  but  one  upon 
which  Congress  is  imperatively  bound  to  legislate, 
(as  was  held  by  the  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court 


260  DESPOTISM 

of  the  United  States  in  the  case  of  Prigg  v.  Penn* 
sylvanm,)  nevertheless,  the  act  of  1850  appear?  to  be 
grossly  unconstitutional  in  not  less  than  three  impor 
tant  particulars.  ^ 

1.  It  confers  jurisdiction   concurrent  with  that  of 
the  judges  of  the  Supreme  and  Circuit  Courts  of  the 
United  States  upon  a  set  of  commissioners,  mere  ap 
pointees  of  the  Circuit  and  Territorial  United  States 
Judges  ;  holding  office  at  the  will  of  those  who  ap 
point  them;  paid  by  fluctuating  and  uncertain  fees, 
and,  in   fugitive  cases,  bribed   to   decide  in   favor  of 
the  claimant  by  a  double  fee  in  case  they  do  so ;  un 
commissioned  by  the  president,  and  unsworn — when 
the  constitution'  of  the   United    States  expressly  re 
quires  that  all  judges,  whether  of  the    Supreme   or 
inferior  courts  shall  hold  office  during  good  behavior, 
and  shall,  at  stated  times,  receive  for  their  services  a 
compensation  which  shall  not  be  diminished  during 
their  continuance  in  office;  shall  be  nominated  by  the 
president  and  confirmed  by  the  senate  ;  shall  be  sworn 
to  support  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
shall  be  commissioned  by  the  president. 

2.  It  deprives  the  alleged  fugitive  of  the  right  of 
trial  by  jury. 

3.  It  substantially  denies  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
by  its  prohibition   to  all   courts,  State   or  Federal,  to 
inquire  under  that  writ,  or  any  other,  into  the  grounds 
of  ihe  commissioner's  certificate,   or  to  correct  any 
errors  of  fact  or  law  into  which  he  may  have  fallen. 

Although  Mr.  Webster,  in  his  7th  of  March  speech, 
announced  his  intention  to  support  the  bill  then  on 
the  table  of  the  senate  and  which  subsequently  be 
came  the  act  of  1850,  "with  all  its  provisions,  to 
its  fullest  extent,"  "  with  some  amendments  to  it," 
(which,  however,  he  found  no  opportunity  to  offer) 
— yet  he  carefully  avoided  on  that  occasion  the 
slightest  allusion  to  its  odious  and  questionable  de 
tails.  Instead  of  that  he  substituted  "a  solemn  ap 
peal  to  all  the  sober  and  sound  minds  at  the  North, 
as  a  question  of  morals  and  a  question  of  conscience, 


IN    AMERICA.    •  261 

what  right  they  had  in  their  legislative  capacity,  or 
any  other  capacity,  to  endeavor  to  get  round  the  con 
stitution,  or  to  embarrass  the  free  exercise  of  the  rights 
secured  by  the  constitution  to  the  persons  whose  slaves 
escape  from  them."  A  perilous  appeal,  in  the  mak 
ing  of  which  the  orator  seems  to  have  forgotten  that 
sober  and  sound  minds,  honest  citizens  with  no  polit 
ical  expectations  or  hopes  of  mercantile  profit  to 
warp  their  better  judgments,  might  be  apt,  at  the 
same  time,  to  ask  themselves,  as  a  question  of  mor 
als  and  a  question  of  conscience,  and  with  even 
stronger  emphasis  too,  what  right  they  had  in  their 
legislative  capacity,  or  in  any  other  capacity,  to  open 
a  door  to  kidknapping,  or  to  put  to  the  slightest  risk 
or  danger  the  personal  liberty  of  a  single  fellow-cit 
izen,  hoy/ever  humble  his  position,  empty  his  purse, 
or  dark  his  complexion.  Such  persons,  so  appealed 
to,  might  be  apt  to  call  to  mind  the  adjudication  of 
"  another  Daniel  come  to  judgment,"  a  case  quite  as 
generally  known  and  approved  as  any  recorded  in  the 
law  books. 

Portia.  A  pound  of  that  same  merchant's  flesh  is  thine  ; 
The  court  awards  it,  and  the  law  doth  give  it. 

Shi/lock.  Most  rightful  judge  ! 

Portia.  And  you  must  cut  this  flesh  from  on?  his  breast ; 
The  law  allows  it,  and  the  court  awards  it. 

Shylock.  Most  learned  judge  ! — A  sentence:  Come.    Prepare. 

Portia.  Tarry  a  little  : — there  is  something  else. 
This  bond  doth  give  thee  here  no  jot  of  blood ; 
The  words  expressly  are,  a  pound  of  flesh. 
Take  then  thy  bond,  takethou  thy  pound  of  flesh; 
But  in  the  cutting  it,  if  thou  dost  shed 
One  drop  of  Christian  blood,  thy  lands  and  goods 
Are,  by  the  laws  of  Venice,  confiscate 
Unto  the  state  of  Venice. 

Gratiano.  O  upright  judge! — Mark,  Jew.    O  learned  judge! 

Slu/iock.  Is  that  the  law  ? 

Portia.                                   Thyself  shall  see  the  act ; 
For  as  thou  urgest  justice,  be  assured 
Thou  shult  have  justice  more  than  thou  desir'st 

Though   Mr.  Webster,  in  his  7th  of  March  speech, 
— perhaps  on  the  principle  that  it  is  hard  to  touch 


262  •        DESPOTISM 

pitch  without  being  defiled  by  it, — said  not  a  word 
on  behalf  of  the  particular  provisions  of  the  bill, 
which,  nevertheless,  he  so  fully  endorsed ;  a  bill 
yielding  up  not  merely  the  pound  of  flesh  alleged  to 
be  stipulated  in  the  bond,  but,  along  with  it,  the  very 
heart's  blood  of  freedom  ;  yet  he  was  soon  driven,  by 
the  storm  of  indignation  on  the  part  of  many  of  the 
soberest  and  soundest  minds  of  the  North  which  that 
endorsement  raised  against  him,  to  attempt  an  apol 
ogy  for  the  misshapen  monster  into  standing  god 
father  to  which  he  had  been  so  unfortunately  whee 
dled  and  seduced  by  such  busy  gossips  as  Hangman 
Foote.  This  he  did  in  his  letter  to  the  citizens  of 
Newburyport  of  May  15th  following  the  delivery  of 
his  7th  of  March  speech,  and  containing  a  double 
apology  for  the  bill  in  question — first,  a  disquisition 
on  the  nature  of  the  process  provided  by  it,  and,  sec 
ondly,  an  attempt  to  justify  it  by  precedent. 

It  would  appear  reasonable  to  judge  of  the  nature 
of  any  proceeding  by  its  effects,  which  effects  in  the 
case  under  consideration  are  sufficiently  obvious.  A 
man  lately  possessed  of  freedom  is  converted  into  a 
chattel,  and  as  such  is  delivered  up  to  a  claimant 
who  has  the  whole  power  of  the  United  States  to 
back  him  in  carrying  off  this  chattelized  man  or  wo 
man  to  a  slave  state,  where  the  mere  fact  of  posses 
sion  gives  to  the  possessor  the  legal  character  and 
the  almost  unbounded  legal  prerogatives  and  powers 
of  master  and  owner,  including  imprisonment  at 
pleasure,  and  the  unrestricted  use  of  the  lash  and  of 
starvation,  with  no  liability  to  question  for  it,  if  death 
do  not  immediately  ensue.  Yet  we  are  gravely  told 
by  Mr.  Webster — who,  in  defect  of  other  arguments, 
and  destitute,  as  usual,  of  all  originality,  has  eagerly 
caught  at  a  suggestion  dropped  probably  without 
much  consideration  thirty  years  before  by  Chief  Jus 
tice  Tilghman,  of  Pennsylvania,  in  a  case  which  we 
shall  presently  have  occasion  to  consider — that  a 
claim,  an  adjudication  upon  it,  and  the  delivery  up 
of  the  adjudged  chattel  into  the  thus  unrestricted 


IN    AMERICA.  263 

power  of  the  claimant,  is  no  judicial  act,  no  trial, 
nothing  but  a  mere  executive  procedure  preliminary 
and  auxiliary  to  a  trial,  a  mere  case  of  extradition,  a 
sending  back  the  fugitive  to  the  state  whence  he 
came,  in  order  that  his  right  to  freedom  may  there 
be  tested. 

Conscious  sophistry  and  studied  falsehood  if  not 
somewhat  excusable — in  a  lawyer — are  at  least  some 
what  intelligible  when  there  is  an  object  to  be  an 
swered  by  them.  This  suggestion  of  Tilgh man's, 
adopted  by  Webster,  notwithstanding  an  express 
ruling  to  the  contrary  by  the  majority  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  case  of  Prigg  v. 
Pennsylvania^  (see  16  Peters,  616,)  being  afterwards 
more  fully  elaborated  and  artfully  set  forth  in  a  legal 
opinion  by  an  adroit  lawyer,  was  soon  followed  by 
that  lawyer's  elevation  to  a  seat  on  the  bench  of 
that  same  Supreme  Court  by  the  side  of  the  judge  of 
the  adjoining  circuit,  whose  previous  promotion  had 
a  similar  antecedent.  But  so  far  as  concerns  the  vin 
dication  of  the  Fugitive  Act  of  1850,  this  elaborated 
lie  is  perfectly  gratuitous,  because  even  if  it  were  the 
truth,  it  would  not  help  the  matter  in  the  least.  The 
framers  of  the  Federal  constitution  were  neither  so 
foolish  nor  so  cruel  as  to  hold  out  a  temptation  to 
kidnappers  by  giving  to  every  mere  private  volunteer 
claimant  from  any  slave  state,  or  pretending  to  be 
from  some  slave  state,  the  right  to  carry  off,  on  his 
mere  claim,  supported  wholly  by  his  own  oath  and 
other  ex  parte  evidence,  any  resident  in  any  free  state, 
who  thus,  far  removed  from  all  friends  and  help,  might 
be  put  to  prove  his  freedom  in  a  country  where  his 
very  complexion  alone  would  establish  a  prima  facie 
case  against  him.  The  constitution  contains  no  pro 
vision  for  delivering  up  fugitives  from  labor  to  parties 
claimant  to  be  conveyed  elsewhere,  to  the  end  that 
the  validity  of  the  claim  to  their  service  may  there  be 
determined.  It  provides  only  for  a  delivery  to  the 
party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  "due."  As 
to  any  conveyance  elsewhere,  not  a  word  is  said  about 


264  DESPOTISM 

it  in  the  constitution  ;  that  is  only  an  incident  to  the 
right  to  service  or  labor;  and  by  the  express  terms  of 
the  provision,  no  delivery  is  required,  and  of  course 
no  such  removal  can  take  place  till-  it  is  first  estab 
lished  that  such  service  or  labor  is  due,  and  due  to 
the  claimant.  And,  notwithstanding  what  he  wrote 
in  his  Newburyport  letter,  Mr.  Webster  was  fully 
aware  of  the  true  character,  in  this  respect,  of  the 
clause  in  question.  This  abundantly  appears  from 
his  own  draft  of  a  Fugitive  Bill  in  amendment  of  the 
act  of  1793,  which,  by  a  sort  of  judicial  blindness, 
such  as  often  betrays  prevaricators  into  furnishing 
evidence  against  themselves,  he  was  led  to  lay  before 
the  senate — for  show,  however,  merely,  not  for  use — 
some  three  weeks  after  the  date  of  his  Newburyport 
letter,  and  perhaps  as  a  supplement  to  it.  That  draft, 
he  told  the  senate,  had  been  prepared  early  in  the 
session — (and  probably  it  was  to  go  with  it  that  the 
greater  part  of  his  7th  of  March  speech  had  also  been 
prepared) — in  conference  with  some  of  the  most  em 
inent  members  of  the  profession,  and  especially  with 
"a  high  judicial  authority,"  [Judge  McLean?]  greatly 
experienced  in  questions  of  this  kind.  These  eminent 
advisers  had  not,  indeed,  saved  the  great  "expounder 
of  the  constitution  "  from  the  obvious  oversight  of 
conferring  upon  commissioners  of  the  United  States 
courts  complete  judicial  authority,  including  the  de 
termination  upon  evidence  of  "the  identity  of  the 
[alleged?]  fugitive,  the  right  of  the  claimant,  and  the 
existence  of  slavery  in  the  state  whence  the  [alleged  ?] 
fugitive  [was  said  to  have?]  absconded."  But  while 
thus,  for  the  convenience  of  the  slave-holders,  uncer 
emoniously  overriding  the  constitution  in  a  point  as 
to  which,  at  least,  Mr.  Webster's  eminent  judicial 
adviser  might  have  been  expected  to  be  specially 
vigilant,  some  attention  was  still  paid  to  that  instru 
ment  in  another  important  respect,  in  which  the  act 
of  1850  entirely  disregards  it.  Mr.  Webster's  draft 
of  a  bill  expressly  provided  "  that  if  the  [alleged  ?]  fugi 
tive  shall  deny  that  he  owes  service  or  labor  to  the 


IN    AMERICA.  265 

claimant  under  the  laws  of  the  state  where  he  was 
[alleged  to  be  ?]  held,  and  after  being  duly  cautioned 
as  to  the  solemnities  and  consequences  of  an  oath, 
shall  swear  to  the  same,  the  commissioner  or  judge 
shall  forthwith  summon  a  jury  of  twelve  to  try  the 
right  of  the  claimant,  who  shall  be  sworn  to  try  the 
cause  according  to  evidence,  and  the  commissioner  or 
judge  shall  preside  at  the  trial,  and  determine  the  com 
petency  of  the  proof." 

That  the  Circuit  Court  commissioners  thus  invested 
by  this  draft,  as  well  as  by  the  act  of  1850  with  high 
judicial  powers,  lacked,  in  several  important  respects 
already  mentioned,  the  constitutional  qualifications 
expressly  required  in  judges,  was  too  plain,  when  once 
pointed  out,  to  be  denied.  Hence  the  attempt  to  con 
vert  the  powers  bestowed  upon  them  by  the  act  of 
1850  into  a  merely  extraditionary  authority — an  after 
thought,  which  owes  all  the  little  plausibility  it  has, 
first,  to  the  accidental  juxtaposition,  in  the  text  of  the 
Federal  constitution,  of  the  provision  for  the  delivery 
up  of  fugitives  from  labor  on  "  the  claim  of  the  party 
to  whom  such  labor  may  be  due"  with  another  and 
wholly  distinct  provision,  for  delivering  up,  "  on  de 
mand  of  the  executive  authorities  of  the  state,"  fugi 
tives  "  charged^  in  any  state,  with  treason,  felony,  or 
other  crimes,  to  be  removed  to  the  state  having  juris 
diction  of  the  crime ;"  and  secondly,  to  a  like  accident 
al  connection  of  the  two  subjects  in  the  old  fugitive 
act  of  1793.  How  the  two  subjects  happened  to  be 
brought  into  juxtaposition  in  the  text  of  the  constitu 
tion  has  been  shown  already  in  the  preceding  section. 
How  they  happened  to  be  also  brought  together  in  the 
act  of  1793,  we  shall  proceed  to  show,  —  to  do  which 
will  lead  us  back  to  Mr.  Webster's  second  apology  for 
the  bill  of  1850,  contained  in  his  Newburyport  letter — 
his  allegation  that  the  bill  of  1850  in  principle  was 
but  the  same  thing  with  the  act  of  1793. 

Of  the  act  of  1793  Mr.  Webster's  letter  gives  the  fol 
lowing  history.     "  The  act  of  Congress  of  the  12th  of 
February,  1793,  appears  to  have  been  well  considered, 
23 


266  DESPOTISM 

and  to  have  passed  with  little  opposition.  There  is 
no  evidence  known  to  me  that  any  body,  at  the  time, 
regarded  any  of  its  provisions  as  repugnant  to  religion, 
liberty,  the  constitution,  or  humanity.  The  two 
senators  of  Massachusetts,  at  that  time,  were  the  dis 
tinguished  legislator  and  patriot  of  your  own  county, 
George  Cabot,  and  that  other  citizen  of  Massachu 
setts,  among  the  most  eminent  of  his  day  for  talent, 
purity  of  character,  and  every  virtue,  Caleb  Strong. 
Mr.  Cabot  indeed  was  one  of  the  committee  for  pre 
paring  the  bill.  It  appears  to  have  passed  the  senate 
without  a  division.  In  the  house  of  representatives 
it  was  supported  by  Mr.  Goodhue,  Mr.  Gerry, — both,  I 
believe,  of  your  county  of  Essex,  (Mr.  Goodhue  af 
terwards  a  senator  of  the  United  States,  and  Mr. 
Gerry  afterwards  vice-president  of  the  United  States,) 
Mr.  Ames,  Mr.  Bourne,  Mr.  Leonard,  and  Mr.  Sedge- 
wick,  members  from  Massachusetts,  and  was  passed 
by  a  vote  of  forty-eight  to  seven  ;  of  these  seven  one 
being  from  Virginia,  one  from  Maryland,  one  from  New 
York,  and  four  from  the  New  England  States,  and  of 
these  four  one,  Mr.  Thacher,  from  Massachusetts.* 

"  I  am  not  aware  that  there  exists  any  published 
account  of  the  debates  on  the  passage  of  this  act.  I 
have  been  able  to  find  none.  I  have  searched  the  origi 
nal  files,  however,  and  I  find  among  the  papers  several 
propositions  for  modifications  and  amendments  of  va 
rious  kinds,  but  none  suggesting  the  propriety  of  any 
jury  trial  in  the  state  where  the  partv  should  be  ar 
rested." 

This  history  of  the  act  of  1793  is  tolerably  correct  so 
far  as  it  goes.  But  it  omits  some  details  as  to  the 
origin  of  that  act  curious  in  themselves,  and  some 
what  essential  to  the  argument,  and  which  therefore 
we  proceed  to  supply.  On  the  llth  of  May  1788,  a 

*  Mr.  Thacher,  it  is  proper  to  note,  was,  in  these  early  Congresses,  the 
only  consistent  and  uniform  New  England  opposer  of  slavery  and  all 
its  pretensions.  In  those  times,  indeed  for  the  first  thirty  years  sub 
sequent  to  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  constitution,  almost  all  the  op 
position  to  slavery  came  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey. 


IN     AMERICA.  267 

month  or  two  before  the  Federal  constitution  became, 
by  the  ratification  of  nine  states,  an  authoritative  act, 
a  negro  named  John  was  seized  in  the  state  of  Penn 
sylvania,  (probably  under  the  allegation  that  he  was 
a  runaway  slave,)  by  certain  persons  in  disguise,  who 
bound  him  and  carried  him  off.  On  the  llth  of  No 
vember  following,  bills  of  indictment  were  'found 
against  one  McGuire  and  two  others,  as  having  kid 
napped  John,  and  taken  him  out  of  the  state  with  in 
tent  to  sell  him  as  a  slave.  This  proceeding  was 
brought  to  the  notice  of  Governor  Mifflin  on  the  13th 
of  May,  1791,  by  a  memorial  of  the  "Pennsylvania 
Society  for  promoting  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the 
relief  of  free  negroes  unlawfully  held  in  bondage,  and 
for  improving  the  condition  of  the  African  race,"  in 
which  memorial  it  was  further  stated  that  the  indicted 
parties  had  precipitately  fled  from  justice  either  into 
Virginia,  where  John  was  held  in  a  state  of  slavery 
by  one  Nicholas  Casey,  residing  near  Romney,  or  else 
into  the  newly  erected  state  of  Kentucky. 

Shortly  after  the  receipt  of  this  memorial,  Mifflin 
addressed  an  official  letter  to  Beverly  Randolph,  gov 
ernor  of  Virginia,  enclosing  the  indictment,  and  the 
memorial,  and  requesting  him  to  take  the  proper  steps 
to  cause  the  fugitives  from  justice  to  be  delivered  up, 
as  provided  for  in  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States.  This  letter,  with  its  enclosures,  Governor  Ran 
dolph  submitted  to  James  Innis,  then  attorney  gen 
eral  of  Virginia,  who  soon  after  gave  an  opinion  to 
the  following  eftect :  1st.  That  by  the  laws  of  Virginia 
the  matter  charged  in  the  indictments  would  amount, 
as  between  the  individual  parties,  only  to  a  trespass, 
and  as  between  the  offenders  and  the  commonwealth 
only  to  a  breach  of  the  peace ;  that  the  trespass 
might  as  well  be  sued  for  in  Virginia  as  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  and  that,  to  an  indictment  for  a  mere  breach  of 
the  peace,  the  defendants  might  appear  by  attorney, 
so  that  it  would  be  soon  enough  to  deliver  them  up 
after  they  were  convicted.  On  the  presumption,  how 
ever,  that  the  offence  charged  stood  on  the  same 


268  DESPOTISM 

ground  in  Pennsylvania  that  it  did  in  Virginia,  it  was 
of  too  trifling  a  nature  to  come  under  the  description 
of  the  term  crime,  as  used  in  the  Federal  constitution. 
2d.  That  the  demand  was  insufficient,  in  not  containing 
any  proof  that  the  persons  demanded  were  in  the 
state.  3d.  That  if  the  delivery  and  removal  of  the 
persons  demanded  could  be  effected  at  all,  it  must  be 
under  the  authority  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States;  but  as  neither  the  laws  of  Virginia  nor  those 
of  Congress  directed  the  mode,  nor  delegated  any 
authority  by  which  the  magistracy  of  the  state  could 
acquire  any  legal  control  over  the  persons  demanded, 
no  such  delivery  as  requested  could  be  made. 

This  opinion  having  been  transmitted  to  Mifflin, 
with  Governor  Randolph's  regrets  that  no  means  had 
yet  been  provided  for  carrying  into  effect  so  important* 
an  article  of  the  Federal  constitution,  it  was  forthwith 
laid  before  President  Washington,  with  copies  of  all 
the  other  documents,  enclosed  in  a  letter  from  Mifflin, 
in  which  he  pointed  out  Innis's  apparent  ignorance  of 
the  act  of  Pennsylvania  under  which  the  indictments 
had  been  found,  (and  which  indeed  had  only  been  en 
acted  March  29,  1788,)  by  which  the  forcibly  carry 
ing  any  person  out  of  the  state  to  be  sold  as  a  slave 
was  subjected  to  a  fine  of  a  hundred  pounds,  and  im 
prisonment  to  hard  labor  for  not  less  than  six  nor 
more  than  twelve  months.* 

Washington,  thus  appealed  to,  submitted  the  case, 
and  all  the  papers  connected  with  it,  to  Edmund 
Randolph,  late  governor  of  Virginia,  then  attorney 
general  of  the  United  States,  who,  on  the  20th  of  July, 
gave  a  very  lucid  opinion  upon  it.  And  here  let  us 
observe,  that  no  contemporary  authority  could  be 
greater  than  Edmund  Randolph's  as  to  the  true  in 
terpretation  of  the  constitution.  No  member  of  the 
Federal  convention,  not  even  Madison  himself,  had 

*  This  act  had  been  copied  from  one  passed  just  before  in  Massa 
chusetts,  where  a  great  excitement  had  been  produced  by  the 
enticement,  at  Boston,  of  three  colored  persons  on  board  a  vessel,  in 
which  they  were  carried  to  the  West  Indies  and  sold  as  slaves. 


IN    AMERICA. 

taken  a  more  active  part  in  framing  it,  while,  as 
a  lawyer,  he  had  then,  and  has  since  had,  very  i'ew 
equals,  and  no  superiors.  Randolph's  opinion  em 
braced  the  following  points :  1st.  That  an  indictment 
found  was  a  sufficient  charge  on  which  to  base  a  de 
mand,  under  the  clause  of  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States,  respecting  fugitives  from  justice.  2d. 
That  the  matter  charged  in  the  Pennsylvania  indict 
ments  was  a  crime  within  the  meaning  of  that  clause, 
and  that  Innis  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the 
defendants  could  plead  to  those  indictments  by  attor 
ney.  3d.  That  some  proof  would  seem  to  be  necessa 
ry,  more  than  had  been  offered  in  this  case,  that  the 
parties  demanded  had  fled  from  justice,  and  had  been 
found  in  the  state  on  which  the  demand  was  made. 
4th.  That,  these  requisites  being  fulfilled,  no  law,  either 
state  or  federal,  was  necessary  to  authorize  their  arrest 
and  delivery.  "  To  deliver  up,"  said  Randolph, — and 
the  argument  appears  to  be  wholly  unanswerable, — 
"  to  deliver  up  is  an  acknowledged  federal  duty ;  and 
the  law  couples  with  it  the  right  of  using1  all  incident 
al  measures  in  order  to  discharge  it.  I  will  not  in 
quire  how  far  these  incidental  means,  if  opposed  to 
the  constitution  and  laws  of  Virginia,  ought  notwith 
standing  to  be  exercised,  because  McGuire  and  his 
associates  may  be  surrendered  without  calling  upon 
any  public  officer  of  that  state.  Private  persons  may 
be  employed  and  clothed  with  a  special  authority. 
The  attorney  general  [of  Virginia]  agrees  that  a  law 
of  the  United  States  might  so  ordain ;  and  wherein 
does  a  genuine  distinction  exist  between  a  power  de- 
ducible  from  the  constitution,  or  incidental  to  a  duty 
imposed  by  the  constitution,  and  a  power  given  by  Con- 
gress  as  auxiliary  to  the  execution  of  such  a  duty  ? 

"  From  these  premises  I  must  conclude  that  it  would 
have  been  more  precise  in  the  governor  of  Pennsylania 
to  transmit  to  the  governor  of  Virginia  an  authenti 
cated  copy  of  the  law  creating  the  offence  ;  that  it 
was  essential  that  he  should  transmit  sufficient  evi 
dence  of  McGuire  and  others  having  fled  from  the 


270  DESPOTISM 

justice  of  the  former,  and  being  found  in  the  latter ; 
that  without  that  evidence  the  executive  of  Virginia 
ought  not  to  have  delivered  them  up  ;  that  with  it 
they  ought  not  to  refuse.  The  governor  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  however,  appears  to  be  anxious  that  the  matter 
should  be  laid  before  Congress,  and  perhaps  such  a 
step  might  content  all  scruples."* 

This  opinion  of  Randolph's  was  sent  by  "Washing 
ton  to  Mifflin,  who  promised,  in  reply,  to  renew  his 
demand,  accompanied  with  the  additional  evidence 
pointed  out  by  Randolph.  Of  the  result  we  are  not 
informed ;  but  when  the  second  Congress  came  to 
gether,  not  long  after,  for  its  first  session,  all  the 
papers,  agreeably  to  Mifflin's  original  request,  were  laid 
by  the  president  before  that  body.  These  papers 
were  suffered,  in  both  houses,  to  lie  on  their  tables 
undisturbed.  The  opinion  of  Randolph  was  decided 
and  emphatic,  that  to  carry  out  the  provision  of 
the  constitution  respecting  fugitives  from  justice,  no 
legislation  was  necessary  ;  and  if  not  necessary,  why, 
then,  not  constitutional, — though  that  was  a  considera 
tion  as  yet  not  much  attended  to, — since  the  legislative 
power  of  Congress  does  not  extend  to  the  satisfying  of 
scruples,  but  only  to  cases  in  which  authority  to  legis 
late  is  expressly  given,  or  is  necessary  to  carry 
out  powers  conferred  by  the  constitution  on  the  gen 
eral  government — to  neither  of  which  categories  did 
this  case  belong.  In  the  course,  however,  of  the  next 
session,  a  committee  was  appointed  in  the  senate, 
consisting  of  Johnston,  of  North  Carolina,  Cabot,  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Reed,  of  Delaware,  "  to  consider 
the  expediency  of  a  law  respecting  fugitives  from 
justice,  and  persons  escaping  from  the  service  of  their 

*  It  is  rather  curious  that,  although  several  judges  have  referred, 
in  their  opinions,  to  the  origin  of  the  act  of  1793,  and  the  correspond 
ence  between  Governor  Mifflin  and  Randolph,  not  one  of  them 
has  even  hinted  at  the  existence  of  Attorney  General  Randolph's 
opinion,  which  is  republished,  however,  along  with  the  other  docu 
ments,  in  Lowrie  £  Franklin's  great  folio  Collection  of  American 
State  Papers,  Miscellaneous  Documents,  vol.  i.  p.  39. 


IN    AMERICA.  271 

masters,  and  to  report  by  bill,  (if  they  think  proper  ;)  " 
which  committee,  about  a  month  after,  did  report  a 
bill,  which  bill,  after  some  modifications,  passed  into 
the  fugitive  act  of  1793. 

That  act  consists  of  four  sections,  the  first  two  of 
which,  relating  to  fugitives  from  justice,  have  been 
often  vouched  in  to  support  the  right  of  Congress  to 
legislate  respecting  fugitives  from  labor.  They  are 
used  for  that  purpose  by  Story,  who,  speaking  on 
behalf  of  himself  and  seven  other  judges  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  P-rigg  v.  Penn 
sylvania,  (p.  620,)  triumphantly  flourishes  the  consti 
tutionality  of  those  sections  as  never  having  been 
called  in  question,  and  their  provisions  as  having  been 
uniformly  acted  upon  by  all  the  state  executives.  And 
for  the  best  of  reasons,  too.  These  sections  require 
nothing  which,  independently  of  the  act  of  1793,  the 
governors  of  the  states  were  not  bound  to  do  by  the 
constitution  itself;  and  though  having  no  authority 
as  a  law,  and  in  that  respect  a  work  of  supereroga 
tion,  they  may,  doubtless,  have  been  convenient  as 
suggesting  a  uniform  method  of  complying  with  the 
requisition  of  the  constitution.  As  to  the  penalty 
inflicted  by  the  second  section  on  persons  rescuing 
fugitives  while  under  transportation,  the  constitution 
ality  of  that  provision  seems  to  rest  upon  the  same 
alleged  authority  in  Congress,  under  which  the  Federal 
courts  sustained  the  constitutionality  of  the  Sedition 
law,  arid  of  the  act  to  punish  counterfeiters  of  the  bills 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  and  I  therefore  turn 
it  over,  without  further  comment,  to  be  dealt  wit|j  by 
the  adherents  of  the  Resolutions  of '98,  in  which  both 
those  penal  acts  were  specially  and  emphatically  de 
nounced  as  unconstitutional,  for  want  of  power  in 
Congress  to  enact  them.  Yet,  to  help  the  better 
to  a  decision  of  the  point,  I  will  venture  to  suggest 
the  inquiry,  whether  the  governors  of  the  states  could 
be  subjected,  by  federal  legislation,  to  fine  and  im 
prisonment,  for  declining  to  surrender  fugitives  from 
justice  ? 


272  DESPOTISM 

We  come  now  to  the  two  latter  sections  of  the  act 
of  1793, — those  relating  to  fugitives  from  labor. 

u  For  many  years,"  so  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Webster 
in  his  Newburyport  letter,  "  little  or  no  complaint  was 
made  against  this  law,  nor  was  it  supposed  to  be 
guilty  of  the  offences  and  enormities  which  have  since 
been  charged  upon  it.  It  was  passed  for  the  purpose 
of  complying  with  a  direct  and  solemn  injunction 
of  the  constitution.  It  did  no  more  than  was  be 
lieved  to  be  necessary  to  accomplish  that  single  pur 
pose  ;  and  it  did  that  in  a  cautious,  mild  manner, 
to  be  every  where  conducted  according  to  judicial 
proceeding's. 

"  I  confess  I  see  no  more  objections  to  the  provis 
ions  of  this  law  than  was  seen  by  Mr.  Cabot,  Mr. 
Strong,  Mr.  Goodhue,  and  Mr.  Gerry  ;  and  such  pro 
visions  appear  to  me,  as  they  appeared  to  them,  to  be 
absolutely  necessary,  if  we  mean  to  fulfil  the  duties 
positively  and  peremptorily  enjoined  upon  us  by  the 
constitution  of  the  country."  [How  so,  if,  in  Mr. 
Webster's  judgment,  as  declared  in  his  7th  of  March 
speech,  the  constitutional  injunction  was  entirely  on 
the  states  ?] 

"  But  since  the  agitation  caused  by  the  abolition 
societies  and  abolition  presses  has,  to  such  an  extent, 
excited  the  public  mind,  these  provisions  have  been 
rendered  obnoxious  and  odious.  Unwearied  efforts 
have  been  made,  and  too  successfully,  to  rouse  the 
passions  of  the  people  against  them,  and  under  the 
cry  of  universal  freedom,  and  under  that  other  cry, 
that  there  is  a  rule  for  the  government  of  public  men 
and  private  men  wliicli  is  of  superior  obligation  to  the 
constitution  of  the  country-,  several  of  the  states  have 
enacted  laws  to  hinder,  obstruct  and  defeat  the  enact 
ments  in  this  act  of  Congress  to  the  utmost  of  their 
power." 

Such  are  the  representations  of  Mr.  Webster  ;  such 
is  his  attempt  to  hide  the  nakedness  of  the  act  of  1850 
and  his  own  under  the  skirts  of  the  act  of  1793,  and 
of  its  respectable  authors  and  supporters.  Those  of 


IN    AMERICA.  273 

them  mentioned  by  Mr.  Webster  were  all  Federalists, 
(with  the  single  exception  of  Gerry)  some  of  them 
very  ultra  Federalists,  but  not  one  of  them  disposed 
to  erect  the  Federal  constitution  either  into  a  Diana 
of  Ephesus  by  the  perpetual  shouting  of  whose  name 
all  gainsayers  were  to  be  silenced,  or  into  a  golden 
calf,  which  priests  and  people  were  alike  to  fall  down  to 
and  worship,  to  the  forgetfulness  of  any  Higher  Law. 
It  is  due,  therefore,  to  the  memory  of  these  worthy 
men,  and  no  less  so  to  the  assailants  of  the  act  of 
1793,  to  state,  that  although  that  act  was  complained 
of  from  the  very  moment  of  its  enactment  by  the 
Pennsylvania  Abolition  Society  and  others  in  repeated 
memorials  to  Congress,  as  opening  altogether  too 
wide  and  dangerous  a  door  to  kidnappers,  yet  that 
the  indignation  against  it,  to  the  results  of  which  Mr. 
Webster  more  particularly  refers,  grew  mainly  not  so 
much  out  of  any  thing  really  contained  in  the  act 
itself,  or  intended  by  those  who  enacted  it,  as  out  of 
a  most  ungracious,  cruel,  and  gratuitous  interpretation 
forced  out  of  it  by  a  set  of  "  consummate  lawyers  "  of 
the  Scott  school, — men  who  regard  personal  rights 
in  comparison  with  the  protection  of  property,  at 
least  the  personal  rights  of  the  poor  and  helpless,  as 
nothing;  and  who,  ridiculously  expecting  to  chain 
up  and  tie  down  the  natural  sentiments  of  justice  and 
equity  by  the  dry  withes  of  their  subtle  ingenuity,  in 
attempting,  like  the  authors  of  the  act  of  1850,  to 
lay  a  rising  breeze,  succeeded  only,  as  the  authors  of 
that  act  have  done,  in  raising  a  whirlwind. 

An  examination  of  the  brief  Federal  statute  book 
of  1793, — for  then  it  was  brief, — will  lead  us  to  the 
evident  model  after  which  the  fugitive  act  of  1793 
was  drawn  ;  which  model  will  not  a  little  assist  us  to 
ascertain  the  idea  entertained  by  those  who  framed 
the  act  of  1793,  and  by  those  who  passed  it  with  so 
little  debate,  of  its  real  meaning  and  practical  opera 
tion. 

Among  the  acts  passed  by  the  first  Congress  was 
one,  approved  July  20th,  1790,  "  For  the  government 


274  DESPOTISM 

and  regulation  of  seamen  in  the  merchant  service," 
chiefly  modelled  after  the  English  acts  of  parliaments 
on  that  subject,  and  of  which  the  7th  section  con 
tained  the  following  provisions  :  "  That  if  any  seaman 
or  mariner,  who  shall  have  signed  a  contract  to  perform 
a  voyage,  shall,  at  any  port  or  place,  desert,  or  shall 
absent  himself  from  such  ship  or  vessel  without  leave 
of  the  master,  or  officer  commanding  in  the  absence 
of  the  master,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  any  justice  of  the 
peace  within  the  United  States  (upon  complaint  of 
the  master)  to  issue  his  warrant  to  apprehend  such 
deserter,  and  bring  him  before  such  justice  ;  and  if  it 
shall  then  appear,  by  due  proof,  that  he  has  signed  a 
contract  within  the  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act, 
and  that  the  voyage  agreed  for  is  not  finished,  altered, 
or  the  contract  otherwise  dissolved,  and  that  such 
seaman  or  mariner  has  deserted  the  ship  or  vessel,  or 
absented  himself  without  leave,  the  said  justice  shall 
commit  him  to  the  house  of  correction  or  common 
jail  of  the  city,  town,  or  place,  there  to  remain  until 
the  said  ship  or  vessel  shall  be  ready  to  proceed  on 
her  voyage,  or  till  the  master  shall  require  his  discharge, 
and  then  to  be  delivered  to  the  said  master,  he  paying 
all  the  costs  of  such  commitment,  and  deducting  the 
same  out  of  the  wages  due  to  such  seaman  or  mariner." 
Now,  Mr.  Cabot,  one  of  the  members  of  the  com 
mittee  of  three  by  which  the  act  of  1793  was  reported, 
was  not  only  a  merchant,  but  he  had  been  a  shipmas 
ter  ;  and  it  was  undoubtedly  he  who  suggested  to  his 
colleagues  this  provision  respecting  fugitive  seamen, 
as  a  model  to  be  followed  in  the  case  of  other  fugi 
tives  from  labor.  Hence  the  3d  section  of  the  act  of 
1793,  which  provides,  "  That  when  a  person  held  to 
labor  in  any  of  the  United  States,  or  in  either  of  the 
territories  on  the  north-west  or  south  of  the  river  Ohio, 
under  the  laws  thereof,  shall  escape  into  any  other  of 
the  said  states,  or  territory,  the  person  to  whom  such 
labor  or  service  may  be  due,  his  agent  or  attorney, 
is  hereby  empowered  to  seize  or  arrest  such  fugitive 
from  labor,  and  to  take  him  or  her  before  any  judge 


IN    AMERICA.  275 

of  the  Circuit  or  District  Courts  of  the  United  States, 
residing  or  being  within  the  state,  or  before  any 
magistrate  of  a  county,  city,  or  town  corporate, 
wherein  such  seizure  or  arrest  shall  be  made ;  and 
upon  proof  to  the  satisfaction  of  such  judge  or  magis 
trate,  either  by  oral  testimony,  or  affidavit  taken  be 
fore  and  certified  by  a  magistrate  of  any  such  state 
or  territory,  that  the  person  so  seized  and  arrested 
doth,  under  the  laws  of  the  state  or  territory  from 
which  he  or  she  fled,  owe  service  or  labor  to  the  per 
son  claiming  him  or  her,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such 
judge  or  magistrate  to  give  a  certificate  thereof  to 
such  claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney,  which  shall  be 
sufficient  warrant  for  removing  the  said  fugitive  from 
labor  to  the  state  or  territory  from  which  he  or  she 
fled."  The  fourth  and  last  section  of  the  act  imposes 
a  penalty  of  five  hundred  dollars,  to  be  recovered  in 
any  court  proper  to  try  the  same,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  claimant,  from  any  one  who  should  obstruct  him 
in  rescuing  his  fugitive,  or  should  rescue  such  fugitive 
from  him,  or  should  harbor  or  conceal  such  fugitive, 
after  notice  that  he  was  claimed  as  such. 

As  the  resemblance  is  sufficiently  obvious  between 
the  provision  for  arresting  fugitive  seamen  and  that 
for  arresting  other  fugitives  from  labor,  so  the  differ 
ence  of  procedure  in  the  two  cases  is  easily  explained. 
In  the  latter  case,  there  being  no  documentary  evidence 
like  the  shipping  paper  to  go  upon,  no  action  was  to 
be  taken  by  the  judge  or  magistrate  till  after  the  arrest. 
The  whole  responsibility  of  that,  and  of  taking  ca/e 
to  seize  nobody  to  whose  services  he  had  not  a  legal 
right,  was  very  properly  thrown  upon  the  claimant, 
who  was  thus  precluded  from  making  use  of  process 
of  arrest  obtained  on  his  own  bare  oath  or  other 
ex  parte  evidence,  for  any  fraudulent  or  kidnapping 
purposes — a  particular  in  which  there  is  an  essential 
difference  between  the  act  of  1793  and  that  of 
1850. 

The  intention  of  the  act  for  the  arrest  of  fugitive 
mariners,  and  that  of  1793  for  the  arrest  of  fugitives 


276  DESPOTISM 

from  labor,  seems  to  be  clear.  That  intention  evi 
dently  was  to  provide  a  summary  process  to  be  used 
in  cases  where  there  was  no  dispute  about  the  facts  or 
as  to  the  right  of  the  claimant,  leaving  open  to  any 
person  against  whom  such  summary  decision  might  be 
made,  all  the  courts,  state  and  federal,  and  all  the 
processes,  whether  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  writ  de 
homine  replegiando  (or  of  personal  replevin), — this  last 
involving  a  trial  by  jury, — or  any  other  commonly 
resorted  to  by  persons  restrained  of  their  liberty,  or 
seeking  to  get  possession  of  the  persons  of  others. 
The  commitment  of  the  justice  in  the  one  case,  his 
warrant  in  the  other,  was  to  be  a  lawful  authority  for 
retaining  the  seaman,  or  adjudged  fugitive  from 
labor,  as  against  any  private  interference  ;  but  neither 
of  them  was  intended  to  act  as  a  bar  to  full  investi 
gation  into  the  rights  of  the  parties  by  the  ordinary 
course  of  law.  I  am  not  aware  that  any  court  or  any 
lawyer  has  ever  yet  pretended  that  the  action  of  a 
justice  of  the  peace  in  committing  an  adjudged  de 
serting  seaman  to  prison,  or  to  the  custody  of  the 
master,  is  absolutely  final  and  conclusive,  turning  the 
seaman  over  to  his  suit  for  false  imprisonment,  and 
not  to  be  otherwise  inquired  into  or  reviewed  by  any 
court,  state  or  federal ;  and  it  was  the  pretended 
discovery  in  the  act  of  1793,  of  this  alarming  potency, 
that  first  raised  against  it  that  loud  and  increasing 
clamor  of  which  Mr.  Webster  so  bitterly  complains. 

Constant  recourse  to  historical  facts,  and  an  explora 
tion  of  contemporaneous  ideas,  have  been  deemed 
essential  to  the  true  interpretation  of  the  constitu 
tional  provisions  bearing,  or  supposed  to  bear,  on 
slavery.  Nor  are  such  external  aids  any  the  less  ne 
cessary  towards  understanding  the  course  of  judicial 
decisions  touching  the  same  subject.  The  conclusion 
of  the  war  of  1812-15  was  followed  by  a  rapid 
extension  of  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  which  speedily 
grew,  with  the  decline  of  the  foreign  demand  for  bread- 
stuffs,  to  be  the  chief  article  of  export.  This  extension 
of  cotton  cultivation,  besides  those  constantly  expand- 


IN    AMERICA.  277 

ing  schemes  of  territorial  aggrandizement  in  a  southern 
direction,  so  vigorously  sketched  by  Mr.  Webster  in  his 
7th  of  March  speech,  also  gave  rise  to  that  domestic 
slave-trade — that  breeding  of  slaves  for  sale — a  point 
too  delicate  for  that  class  of  preachers  who  "  never 
mention  hell  to  ears  polite,"  and  therefore  omitted  by 
Mr.  Webster, — yet  chiefly  instrumental  in  producing 
that  change  of  opinion  at  the  south  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  upon  which  he  dwells  with  so  much 
emphasis  in  his  7th  of  March  speech  ;  and,  indeed,  a 
coincident  change  of  opinion  at  the  North,  at  least 
among  ship-owners,  merchants,  manufacturers,  and 
politicians,  no  less  remarkable. 

This  domestic  slave-trade  was  a  rude  shock  to  that 
patriarchal  character  to  which,  on  some  of  the  older 
plantations  of  Maryland,  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas, 
slavery  had  attained  some  shadow  of  title.*  By  keep 
ing  constantly  before  the  eyes  of  the  enslaved  the 
gloomy  prospect  of  the  auction-block  and  the  slave 
trader's  chain-gang,  it  greatly  increased  their  inclina 
tion  to  run  away.  If  they  must  quit  the  localities  to 

*  This  trade,  at  its  first  commencement,  was  not  less  loudly  de 
nounced  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  than  the  African  slave  trade  had 
been  during  the  revolutionary  period.  John  Randolph  stigmatized 
it,  in  1816,  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  as  "heinous  and  abominable," 
"  inhuman  and  illegal."  Even  Governor  Williams,  of  South  Caro 
lina,  spoke  of  it,  in  one  of  his  messages  to  the  legislature  of  that 
state,  as  "  a  remorseless  and  merciless  traffic,"  "  a  ceaseless  dragging 
along  the  streets  and  highways  of  a  crowd  of  suffering  victims  to 
minister  to  insatiable  avarice,"  not  only  "  condemned  by  enlightened 
humanity,  wise  policy  and  the  prayers  of  the  just,"  but  tending,  by 
its  introduction  of  slaves  of  all  descriptions,  to  "  defile  the  delightful 
avocations  of  private  life  by  the  presence  of  convicts  and  malefactors." 
(See  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  vi.  pp.  613-14.) 

This  same  traffic,  however,  proving  the  chief  resource  of  the  im 
poverished  planters  of  Virginia,  Maryland  and  the  Carolinas,  many 
of  whom  now  live,  to  use  the  expressive  local  phraseology,  by  eating 
their  negroes,  it  has  come  to  be  cherished  and  defended  in  those 
states  with  as  much  zeal  as  the  merchants  of  Bristol  and  Liverpool 
ever  exhibited  on  behalf  of  the  African  slave-trade,  or  as  is  exhibited 
on  behalf  of  it  to-day  by  the  petty  kings  who  live  by  it  on  the 
African  coast. 

For  Mr.  Webster's  remarks  on  the  change  of  sentiment  at  the 
South,  and  some  corrections  of  the  exaggerations  into  which  he  has 
fallen,  see  Appendix. 

24 


278  DESPOTISM 

which  habit  had  so  strongly  attached  them,  they 
greatly  preferred  the  free  air  of  the  North  to  the  fever- 
breeding  swamps  of  the  South.  It  produced,  also, 
another  result  not  less  deplorable.  Traders  for  the 
southern  market  were  found  ready  enough  to  purchase 
"  likely  negroes  "  without  any  particular  inquiry  into 
the  means  by  which  the  possession  of  them  had  been 
acquired  ;  and  in  the  free  states  nearest  the  slave- 
holding  frontier,  and  in  which  the  free  colored  people 
were  the  most  numerous,  so  great  were  the  abuses  by 
ignorant  and  corrupt  justices  of  the  peace  and  other 
local  magistrates,  of  the  authority  vested  in  them  by 
the  act  of  1793,  and  the  facilities  thereby  afforded 
for  kidnapping,  as  soon  to  give  occasion  to  very  loud 
complaints.  An  attempt  was  even  made  in  1817,  in 
the  senate  of  the  United  States,  to  amend  that  law, 
so  as  to  guard  against  these  abuses  ;  but  apprehen 
sions  lest  the  proposed  changes  might  diminish  the 
facilities  for  recovering  runaways  caused  that  attempt, 
to  be  opposed  and  abandoned.  The  border  slave 
holders,  on  the  other  hand,  provoked  at  the  shelter, 
aid  and  concealment  often  afforded  in  the  free  states, 
and  especially  in  Pennsylvania,  to  their  runaway 
slaves,  called  loudly  for  a  still  more  stringent  law  ; 
and  in  1818,  after  a  pretty  warm  struggle,  they  suc 
ceeded  in  carrying  a  bill  of  that  sort  through  both 
houses  of  Congress.  That  bill,  a  sort  of  forerunner 
of  the  act  of  1850,  authorized  the  claimant  to  estab 
lish  his  claim  on  ex  parte  evidence  before  some  judge 
of  his  own  state,  having  done  which  he  was  to  be 
entitled  to  an  executive  demand  upon  the  governor 
of  the  state  in  which  the  fugitive  'might  be  found, 
heavy  penalties  being  imposed  upon  all  who  refused  to 
aid  in  the  arrest.  The  senate  added  a  provision,  that 
after  the  removal,  the  person  removed  should  be  proved 
to  be  the  same  with  the  person  claimed  by  some  evi 
dence  other  than  the  oath  of  the  claimant.  This 
amendment,  by  giving  the  northern  members  time  to 
bethink  themselves,  defeated  the  passage  of  the  bill, 
which,  after  its  return  from  the  senate,  was  left,  not- 


IN    AMERICA.  279 

withstanding  repeated  attempts  to  take  it  up,  to  lie 
and  to  die  on  the  table  of  the  house.* 

The  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania  had  lately 
(1816)  given  high  offence  to  the  slave-holders  by  de 
ciding,  in  the  case  of  The  Commonwealth  v.  Holloway, 
2  Seargent  &  Rawle's  Reports,  305,  apparently  on 
impregnable  grounds,  that  the  children  of  fugitive 
slave  women  born  in  Pennsylvania  more  than  a  year 
after  the  arrival  of  their  mothers  in  the  state,  were 
born  free ;  and  that,  such  children  being  neither  fugi 
tives,  nor  owing  service  to  any  body  as  slaves,  no 
claimant  from  abroad  could  touch  them.  In  1819 
came  before  the  same  court  the  case  of  Wright 
v.  Deacon,  5  Seargent  &  Rawle,  62,  on  a  writ  of 
de  homine  replegiando  sued  out  against  Deacon, 
keeper  of  the  Philadelphia  jail,  who  held  in  custody 
the  plaintiff  Wright,  at  the  request,  and  for  the  tem 
porary  convenience,  of  a  claimant  who  had  obtained  a 
certificate  to  remove  Wright,  as  a  fugitive  from  service. 
The  object  was  to  obtain  a  review,  and  a  trial  by 
jury,  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  certificate  had  been 
granted.  But  the  court,  taking  a  far  less  lawyer-like  as 
well  as  less  statesman-like  view  than  that  of  Edmund 
Randolph  above  cited,  held,  1st.  That  "  it  required  a 
law  [of  Congress]  to  regulate  the  manner  in  which 
the  claim  should  be  made  and  the  fugitive  delivered 
up,"  and,  on  this  ground,  that  the  act  of  1793  was 
constitutional — the  first  reported  judicial  decision  ever 
pronounced  on  that  point ;  and  2dly.  That  a  certifi 
cate  granted  under  the  act  of  1793  was  absolutely 
conclusive  as  to  the  rights  of  both  parties,  at  least  until 
the  removal  authorized  by  it  had  been  completed  ;  and 
that  after  such  certificate  had  once  been  granted,  no 
state  court,  nor  indeed  any  court,  had  any  right  to  inter 
fere,  or  to  re-examine  the  case,  either  by  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  writ  of  personal  replevin,  or  any  other  method. 
This  opinion,  in  which  the  three  judges  concurred, 

*  For  further  particulars  respecting  this  bill,  see  Hildreth's  History 
of  the  United  States,  vol.  vi.  pp.  635-7. 


280  DESPOTISM 

was  delivered  by  William  Tilghman,  the  chief  justice. 
It  is  quite  short,  and  the  following  paragraph  em 
braces  the  most  essential  part  of  it.  "  It  plainly  appears 
from  the  whole  scope  and  tenor  of  the  constitution 
and  act  of  Congress,  that  the  fugitive  was  to  be  de 
livered  up  on  a  summary  proceeding,  without  the 
delay  of  a  formal  trial  in  a  court  of  common  law. 
But  if  he  had  really  a  right  to  freedom,  that  right 
was  not  impaired  by  that  proceeding ;  he  was  placed 
just  in  the  situation  in  which  he  stood  before  he  fled, 
and  might  prosecute  the  right  in  the  state  to  which 
he  belonged."  Here  we  see  the  origin  of  Mr.  Web 
ster's  idea  of  extradition,  an  idea  involving  a  prejudg- 
ment  of  the  case  in  two  of  its  most  essential  points  ; 
wholly  cutting  off  from  his  most  obvious  rights 
every  person  certified  as  a  fugitive,  but  not  such  in 
reality ;  and  every  person  actually  a  fugitive,  but  cer 
tified  as  owing  service  to  a  claimant  having  no  legal 
title  to  such  service.  What  a  heartless,  insolent 
mockery  to  tell  a  native  citizen  of  Pennsylvania, 
about  to  be  transferred  to  South  Carolina  on  a  certi 
ficate,  purchased  perhaps  by  a  bribe  of  five  dollars — 
for  it  is  but  reasonable  to  suppose  that  some  state 
magistrates  may  be  bought  at  the  average  price  es 
tablished  by  the  act  of  1850  for  United  States  com 
missioners  ; — what  a  mockery  to  tell  such  a  person, 
about  to  be  placed  in  a  pestiferous  South  Carolina 
rice  swamp,  with  an  iron  chain  and  ball  of  fifty 
pounds'  weight  attached  to  his  leg,  and  an  iron  collar 
with  four  prongs  to  it  about  his  neck,  that  his  right  to 
freedom  will  not  be  impaired  by  this  proceeding;  that 
he  is  placed  in  the  same  situation  in  which  he  stood 
before  the  certificate  was  granted,  and  that  he  can 
prosecute  his  right  in  the  state  to  which  he  belongs  ! 
Such  is  the  enormous  absurdity  involved  in  this 
opinion  of  Tilghman's,  and  in  that  .of  every  judge 
and  lawyer  by  whom  it  has  been  followed,  all  grow 
ing  out  of  the  gratuitous  assumption,  contained  also  in 
the  very  phraseology  of  Mr.  Webster's  draft  of  a  bill, 
that  every  person  claimed,  or  at  least  every  person  certi- 


IN    AMERICA.  281 

fied,  must  be  a  fugitive,  and  a  fugitive  owing  labor 
to  the  person  who  claims  him.  But  besides  this  pre- 
judgment  of  the  case  in  its  most  essential  particulars, 
this  opinion  and  all  its  echoes  totally  overlook  the 
plain  distinction  between  cases  where  the  right  of  the 
claimant  is  confessed,  or  not  contested,  —  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  case  of  tenants  holding  over,  in  which 
cases  alone  summary  proceedings  for  the  enforcement 
of  rights  are  ever  allowed, — and  contested  cases,  in 
which  it  is  the  undoubted  common  law  right  of  every 
party  to  have  a  thorough  trial,  both  as  to  facts  and 
law  ;  especially  before  so  serious  a  step  is  taken  as 
the  delivering  him  up  as  a  chattel  into  the  absolute 
power  of  another.  So  far  from  infringing  that  right, 
the  Federal  constitution  has  taken  care  specially  to 
guard  it;  and,  surely,  it  is  one  from  which  no  party, 
however  humble  or  helpless,  is  to  be  ousted  by  any  im 
plication  or  construction,  nor,  indeed,  by  any  thing  short 
of  the  most  express  and  positive  provision  in  terms. 

Chief  Justice  Tilghman  was  a  lawyer  of  moderate 
temper  and  decent  abilities,  (and  the  same  description 
will  apply  to  his  colleagues),  belonging  to  that  very 
large  class  of  jurists,  to  make  one  of  which  requires 
nothing  but  an  ordinary  share  of  judgment,  diligence, 
and  experience, — a  kind  of  men  sufficiently  \vell 
adapted  to  the  ordinary  routine  of  the  bench,  but 
pretty  certain  to  make  some  egregious  blunder  the  mo 
ment  they  attempt  to  step  beyond  it.  A  decided  Fed 
eralist,  one  of  John  Adams's  midnight  judges,  Tilgh 
man  had  been  ousted  from  that  seat  by  the  repeal  of  the 
act  under  which  he  held  office,  but  shortly  after  had 
been  raised  to  the  chief-justiceship  of  Pennsylvania  by 
Governor  McKean,  at  a  time  when  that  political 
gamester,  having  quarrelled  with  the  more  radical 
Democrats  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  his  original 
election,  had  found  it  necessary  to  sustain  himself  in 
office  by  courting  the  aid  of  the  Federalists.  Tilgh 
man  and  his  colleagues  probably  hoped  that  so  per 
emptory  a  decision  might  help  to  quiet  the  rising 
excitement  in  Pennsylvania  on  the  subject  of  the 
24* 


282  DESPOTISM 

reclamation  of  fugitives  occasioned  by  the  growing 
frequency  of  such  claims,  and  of  kidnappings  alleged 
to  be  perpetrated  under  their  cover,  and  to  which 
the  contemporaneous  controversy  as  to  the  extension 
of  slavery  into  Missouri  added  no  little  fervor.  Bat 
if  such  was  their  expectation,  they  found  themselves 
mistaken.  Their  harsh  and  unwarrantable  interpreta 
tion  of  the  act  of  1793  at  once  overwhelmed  that 
act  with  universal  odium.  Hence  arose  the  agita 
tion  against  it  of  which  Mr.  Webster  so  bitterly 
complains ;  an  agitation  in  which  the  legislatures 
of  the  Middle  States  took  the  lead,  by  enactments 
of  which  the  object  was  to  put  some  restriction  upon 
the  despotic  energy  which  Tilghman  and  his  colleagues 
had  construed  into  that  act ;  restrictions  for  which  a 
recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  seemed  to  open  the  way. 

That  court,  in  the  celebrated  and  mur  i  contested 
case  of  Hunter  v.  Martin's  Lessee,  (1  Wbeaton,  330,) 
decided  in  1816,  in  maintaining  their  rig^t  under  the 
constitution  to  issue  to  the  Supreme  Courts  of  the 
states  writs  of  error,  in  cases  involving  i\  e  interpreta 
tion  of  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States, 
had  called  attention  to  a  provision  of  the  Federal 
constitution,  which,  under  the  impulse  of  economizing 
Federal  officers  and  salaries,  seems,  on  more  occa 
sions  than  one,  to  have  escaped  the  attention  of  the 
members  of  the  earlier  Congresses,  though  so  many  of 
them  had  sat  in  the  Federal  convention.  That  pro 
vision  required  that  "  the  judicial  power  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  in 
such  inferior  courts  as  the  Congress  may  from  time  to 
time  order  and  establish;"  which  clause  was  held,  in  the 
case  above  cited,  to  prohibit  Congress  "to  vest  any 
portion  of  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States,  ex 
cept  in  courts  ordained  and  established  by  itself."  Upon 
the  strength  of  this  doctrine,  and  very  soon  after  it  was 
declared,  occasion  was  found,  in  the  case  of  certain 
parties  bound  over  to  trial  for  violation  of  the  neutrality 
acts  in  fitting  out  privateers  to  sail  under  the  flags  of  the 


IN    AMERICA.  283 

new  South  American  republics,  to  call  in  question 
the  authority  conferred  by  the  33d  section  of  the 
judiciary  act  of  1789,  upon  justices  of  the  peace, 
concurrently  with  the  judges  of  the  United  States 
District  Courts,  to  arrest  and  commit  for  trial,  or  to 
release  on  bail,  persons  charged  with  offences  against 
the  United  States.  This  objection  was  sustained 
by  some  of  the  district  judges,  and  Congress,  in 
consequence,  passed  an  act,  (March  1,  1817,)  con 
ferring  these  same  concurrent  powers  of  arrest,  ex 
amination,  commitment,  and  release  on  bail,  upon 
certain  commissioners,  whom,  by  a  previous  act  of 
February  20,  1812,  the  Circuit  Courts  had  been  au 
thorized  to  appoint  for  the  purpose  of  taking  affidavits 
and  acknowledgments  of  bail  in  civil  cases.  Such 
was  the  origin  of  judicial  powers  exercised  by  com 
missioners  of  the  Circuit  Courts.  But  though  these 
new  officers  were  "  ordained  and  established "  by 
Congress,  still  they  were  obnoxious,  in  common  with 
justices  of  the  peace,  to  other  objections  already  men 
tioned — having  neither  the  tenure  of  office  nor  the 
stated  salary  required  by  the  very  same  section  of 
the  constitution,  and  being  neither  appointed  by  the 
president  nor  subject  to  confirmation  by  the  senate  ; 
guarantees  against  partiality  and  corruption  quite  as 
necessary  in  committing  officers,  and  especially  in  such 
officers  as  these  commissioners  have  come  to  be,  under 
the  act  of  1845  and  the  fugitive  act  of  1850,  as  in  those 
whose  decisions  as  to  matters  of  fact  require  the  cooper 
ation  of  a  jury,  and  whose  whole  procedure  is  checked 
by  the  solemnity  and  notoriety  of  a  formal  trial. 

Availing  themselves  of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  in  Hunter  v.  Martin's 
Lessee,  that  Congress  had  no  authority  to  command 
the  services  of  the  state  tribunals,  the  assembly  of 
Pennsylvania,  justly  shocked  at  the  new  interpretation 
put  upon  the  act  of  1793  by  their  Supreme  Court, 
passed  a  law,  (March  22,  1820,)  by  which  the  execu 
tion  of  the  act  of  1793  was  restricted,  so  far  as  the 
state  officers  of  Pennsylvania  were  concerned,  to  the 


S81  DESPOTISM 

judges  of  the  County  Courts,  who  were  required, 
whenever  they  granted  a  certificate,  to  file  with  the 
clerk  of  the  county  a  record  of  the  whole  proceedings, 
containing  the  names  of  the  parties  and  witnesses, 
and  a  statement  of  the  evidence  upon  which  the  cer 
tificate  had  been  granted.  Aldermen  and  justices  of 
the  peace  were  forbidden  to  grant  certificates  at  all ; 
and  it  was  made  a  felony  to  carry  any  negro  or  mu 
latto  out  of  the  state,  without  process,  with  intent  to 
hold  him  as  a  slave.  Afterwards,  by  an  act  of  1826, 
passed  at  the  earnest  request  of  the  authorities  of 
Maryland,  the  law  of  1820  was  so  far  modified  as, 
under  certain  restrictions,  to  restore  jurisdiction  to 
justices  of  the  peace  and  aldermen  ;  but  the  other 
provisions  of  the  act  of  1820,  and  especially  the 
penalties  for  removal  without  process,  were  continued 
in  full  force. 

Nor  was  Pennsylvania  the  only  state  to  legislate 
on  this  subject.  Her  act  was  subsequently  (1836-7) 
incorporated,  with  some  trifling  modifications,  into 
the  statute  book  of  New  Jersey.  At  a  still  earlier 
day  the  legislature  of  New  York,  in  preparing  a 
revised  code  for  that  state,  (1827-30,)  imposed  several 
similar  restrictions  upon  the  action  of  her  magistrates 
and  judges  under  the  act  of  1793.  She  not  only  pro 
hibited,  as  Pennsylvania  had,  the  carrying  away 
of  any  alleged  fugitive  slave  without  process,  but  all 
claimants  who  failed  to  make  out  their  claims  were 
subjected  to  heavy  costs  and  damages.  The  same  act, 
in  defiance  of  Tilghman's  decision,  specially  reserved 
to  all  alleged  fugitives  for  whom  certificates  might  be 
granted,  a  right  to  review  that  proceeding,  upon 
habeas  corpus  or  writ  de  homine  replegiando,  a  pro 
cess  which  involved,  as  we  have  already  mentioned, 
a  trial  by  jury  ;  which  trial  by  jury  was  also  authorized 
by  a  subsequent  act  in  cases  in  which  the  rehearing 
took  place  under  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

The  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state  of 
New  York  has  often  been  occupied  by  very  able 
jurists.  At  that  time,  under  a  recent  reorganization, 


IN    AMERICA. 


285 


it  consisted  of  three  judges,  none  of  them  of  any  ex 
traordinary  reputation,  and  whatever  might  be  their 
political  professions,  all  of  them  as  thoroughly  Fede 
ral,  at  least  in  slave  cases,  as  Tilghman  himself. 
This  Supreme  Court,  in  1834,  in  the  case  of  Jack  v. 
Martin,  (12  Wendall,  311,)  set  aside  these  provisions 
of  the  state  legislature  by  holding,  1st.  That  Congress 
had  the  right  to  legislate  to  give  effect  to  the  clause 
in  the  Federal  constitution  respecting  fugitives  from 
labor  ;  2dly.  That  the  act  of  1793  overrode  and  ousted 
all  state  legislation  on  the  subject ;  and  3d.  That  the 
object  of  the  constitutional  provision  evidently  being 
the  return  of  fugitive  slaves,  the  act  of  1793  "  should 
receive  a  construction  such  as,  consistently  with  its 
terms,  would  operate  most  effectually  to  secure  the 
end  " — in  other  words,  that  any  protection  of  the  cit 
izens  of  New  York  against  false  or  unfounded  claims 
ought  not  to  be  thought  of  or  provided  for,  when  such 
provision  might  be  liable  to  interfere  with  the  most  sum 
mary  proceedings  in  favor  of  southern  slave  claimants!* 
This  opinion,  a  mere  wire-drawing  in  pages  of  what 
TiJghman  had  expressed  in  paragraphs,  was  pro 
nounced  by  Judge  Nelson ;  and  according  to  a  very 
remarkable  coincidence,  (if,  in  fact,  it  was  entirely 
accidental,)  upon  the  first  vacancy  he  was  raised  to  a 
seat  upon  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  successor  to  Thompson,  and  by  the 
side  of  Baldwin,  both  of  whom,  it  is  worthy  of  note, 
had,  previously  to  their  appointments,  taken  strong 
slave-holding  ground  on  the  question  of  extending 
slavery  into  Missouri.  And  we  may  add,  W7hat  makes 
these  coincidences  the  more  remarkable,  that  since  the 
date  of  the  Missouri  compromise,  not  a  single  northern 

*  This  case  afterwards  went  up  to  the  New  York  Court  of  Errors, 
but  was  decided  there  (14  Wendall,  507)  in  favor  of  the  claimant,  on 
the  ground  that  the  plaintiff,  by  his  pleas,  bad  confessed  himself  the 
claimant's  slave.  Any  expression  of  opinion  by  the  court  on  the  con 
stitutionality  of  the  act  of  1793,  or  upon  the  New  York  statute  provis 
ions,  was  carefully  avoided,  although,  Chancellor  Walworth.  sitting  as 
one  of  the  judges,  took  that  occasion  to  pronounce  a  formal  opinion, 
already  referred  to,  against  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  of  1793. 


286  DESPOTISM 

man — with  the  exception  of  Judge  McLean,  who  was 
appointed  for  political  convenience  to  get  him  out  of 
an  office  which  it  was  desired  to  fill  otherwise — has 
been  raised  to  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  except  under  similar  circumstances  ; 
at  least  the  only  other  possible  exception  is  Judge 
Grier,  the  successor  of  Baldwin,  whose  reputation, 
previous  to  his  appointment, — though,  like  his  prede 
cessor,  a  man  of  decided  legal  ability, — was  so  merely 
local,  that  I  am  not  at  present  able  to  specify  the 
particular  services,  if  any,  which  he  had  rendered  to 
the  slave  power.  But  that  the  man  was  well  known, 
his  violence,  I  may  even  say  his  ferocity,  on  the  bench, 
in  behalf  of  the  law  of  1850,  sufficiently  shows. 

Prior  to  the  elevation  of  these  latter  serviceable 
judges,  and  while  Thompson  and  Baldwin  still  sat  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  the  question  of  the  constitution 
ality  of  the  act  of  1793,  and  of  the  true  interpretation 
and  effect  of  the  clause  in  the  Federal  constitution 
respecting  the  delivering  up  of  fugitives  from  service, 
came  before  that  court  in  the  celebrated  case,  already 
repeatedly  referred  to,  of  P^igg"  v.  Pennsylvania. 
Prigg,  a  citizen  of  Maryland,  had  been  indicted, 
under  the  Pennsylvania  act  of  1826,  for  carrying  out 
of  that  state,  without  process  or  warrant,  a  negro 
woman  whom  he  claimed  as  his  slave,  and  with  her 
several  of  her  children,  one  of  which,  born  more  than 
a  year  after  the  mother's  arrival  in  Pennsylvania,  ac 
cording  to  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of> 
Pennsylvania  already  cited,  was  born  a  free  person. 

After  a  great  deal  of  controversy  between  the  two 
states,  Prigg  having  been  demanded  as  a  fugitive 
from  the  justice  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  governor 
of  Maryland,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  refusing  to  deliver 
him  up,  by  an  arrangement  of  the  state  legislatures 
the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  law  of  "Pennsyl 
vania  was  brought  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  on  an  agreed  statement  of  facts,  in  the 
form  of  a  special  verdict,  in  which  it  was  admitted, 
among  other  things,  that  the  woman  carried  oft'  had 


IN    AMERICA.  287 

been  Prigg's  slave,  and  had  escaped  from  him  into 
Pennsylvania,  and  also  that  one  of  the  children  car 
ried  off  with  her  had  been  born  in  Pennsylvania  more 
than  a  year  after  her  arrival  there. 

All  the  judges  agreed  that  Prigg  was  entitled  to  be 
discharged  from  the  indictment ;  but  in  the  view 
which  they  took  of  the  law  of  the  case,  they  differed 
not  a  little.  Story,  who  pronounced  the  judgment 
of  the  court,  began  by  a  most  remarkable  avowal. 
The  court,  he  said,  did  not  mean  to  be  held  to  apply 
to  any  other  clause  whatever  of  the  constitution,  any 
rules  which,  in  the  present  case,  they  might  see  fit  to 
lay  down  for  interpreting  the  provision  respecting 
fugitives  from  labor.  In  fact  the  constitution  was  so 
peculiar  an  instrument,  made  so  much  in  the  spirit  of 
compromise,  that  all  general  rules  for  its  interpretation 
seemed  out  of  the  question.  It  must  be  interpreted 
in  the  same  spirit  in  which  it  had  been  made,  and  each 
clause  must  be  handled  by  itself,  according  to  the  good 
discretion  of  the  court. 

In  promulgating  this  new  rule  of  judicial  interpre 
tation,  or  rather  this  declaration  of  independence  and 
disregard  of  all  rules,  perhaps  calculated  to  increase 
the  already  somewhat  too  "glorious  uncertainty  of 
the  Ia\v,"  but  also  very  convenient  for  timid  and  time 
serving  tribunals,  the  learned  judge  appears  to  have 
forgotten — or  perhaps  he  only  intended  to  confirm  by  a 
striking  practical  application  of  it — the  strong  remark 
of  Lord  Camden,  that  "  the  discretion  of  a  judge  is 
the  law  of  tyrants,  in  the  best  ofttimes  caprice,  in  the 
worst  every  vice,  folly,  and  passion  of  which  human 
nature  is  liable."  Its  immediate  object,  no  doubt,  was 
to  save  his  brethren,  and  indeed  himself,  from  certain 
obvious  charges  of  inconsistency,  some  of  which  will 
be  presently  pointed  out. 

After  this  singular  preamble,  Story  proceeded  to 
state  a  point  in  which  all  the  judges  except  McLean 
agreed  ;  namely,  that  the  clause  in  the  Federal  consti 
tution  respecting  fugitives  from  labor  is  of  potency 
and  vigor  enough,  independently  of  any  special  Fed- 


288  DESPOTISM 

eral  or  state  legislation,  to  give  to  a  party  to  whom 
labor  is  really  due,  under  the  laws  of  any  state,  the 
right,  in  any  and  every  other  state,  to  seize,  without 
any  process,  and  to  carry  off  his  fugitive  whenever  he 
can  do  so  without  any  act  of  violence  amounting  to 
a  breach  of  the  peace.  This  point  was  in  perfect 
accordance  with  the  opinion  of  Edmund  Randolph, 
heretofore  cited.  It  had  been  expressly  ruled  by  the 
Supreme  Courts  of  New  York  and  Massachusetts  in 
the  cases  of  Glen  v.  Hodges,  (9  Johnson,  67,)  and  of 
Commonwealth  v.  Griffith,  (2  Pickering,  11,)  as  well  as 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  case 
of  Wright  v.  Deacon.  And  according  to  the  view  set 
forth  at  the  beginning  of  this  section,  such  a  right 
of  seizure,  without  process,  and  without  any  special 
legislative  provision  for  it,  must  exist  in  all  the  states 
whose  local  laws,  as  is  generally  the  case,  concede  a 
similar  right  of  recaption  whenever  the  control  or 
custody  of  the  person  of  one  individual  is  vested,  by 
the  law,  in  another.  But  of  course  all  such  recaptions 
are  subject,  as  in  all  other  cases  of  the  exercise  of  a 
similar  power,  to  have  their  grounds  inquired  into  by 
the  state  courts. 

Yet  though  supported  by  such  authorities,  the  rule 
of  constitutional  interpretation  here  adopted  seems 
in  direct  conflict  with  a  decision  made  by  this  same 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  only  the 
very  year  before,  in  a  case  involving  the  effect  and 
force  of  a  provision  in  the  constitution  of  the  state 
of  Mississippi.  That  constitution  contained  the  fol 
lowing  clause :  "  The  introduction  of  slaves  into 
this  state  as  merchandise  or  for  sale  shall  be  prohibit 
ed  from  and  after  the  first  day  of  May,  1833  ;  provided 
the  actual  settler  or  settlers  shall  not  be  prohibited 
from  purchasing  slaves  in  any  state  in  this  Union,  and 
bringing  them  into  this  state  for  his  own  individual 
use  till  1845," — which  clause,  in  the  case  of  Graves 
fy  al.  v.  Slaughter,  (15  Wheaton,  449,)  had  been  set 
up  as  invalidating  a  note  given  for  slaves  brought  into 
Mississippi  as  merchandise,  and  sold  there  subsequent- 


IN    AMERICA.  289 

ly  to  May  1833.  In  that  case,  for  the  protection  of 
the  slave-traders,  who  had  retained  Clay  and  Webster 
as  their  counsel,  the  court  held  that  this  constitutional 
provision  was  a  mere  injunction  on  the  legislature, 
and  of  no  effect  till  first  it  had  been  complied  with 
by  the  enactment  of  a  law  for  enforcing  it.  It  is, 
however,  but  justice  to  state,  that  three  of  the  judges, 
Story,  McKinley,  and  Baldwin,  dissented  from  this 
decision,  while  a  fourth,  Daniel,  who  now  concurred 
with  the  majority,  was  not  then  a  member  of  the 
court.  The  two  former  had  held,  consistently  enough 
with  their  present  opinion,  that  the  constitutional 
provision  was  efficacious  in  itself,  and  the  contract 
therefore  void.  Baldwin  did  not  deny  the  right  of  a 
state  entirely  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of  slaves  as 
a  matter  of  internal  policy,  but  he  regarded  the  pro 
vision  in  the  constitution  of  Mississippi  as  a  bare 
attempt  to  regulate  the  internal  slave-trade,  and  to 
give  to  residents  in  the  state  advantages  over  citizens 
of  other  states,  and  on  that  ground  he  held  the  pro 
vision  void,  as  conflicting  with  the  exclusive  right  of 
Congress  to  regulate  trade  between  the  states. 

Such  had  been  the  rule  of  constitutional  interpreta 
tion  held  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
in  1841.  In  1842  the  convenience  of  slave-holding 
seemed  to  require  a  totally  opposite  decision,  and, 
true  to  their  doctrine  of  being  tied  up  by  no  rules, 
the  majority  of  the  court  now  ran  headlong  with 
Story  into  the  opposite  extreme.  Not  only  did  they 
find  in  the  bare  constitutional  injunction,  with  respect 
to  fugitives  from  labor,  an  indefeasible  right  of  recap 
ture,  independent  of  all  special  legislation  state  or 
national, — they  allowed  Story  to  put  forth,  in  their 
name,  the  extravagant  statement  that  "  the  constitu 
tional  clause  puts  the  right  to  the  service  and  labor 
upon  the  same  ground,  and  to  the  same  extent,  in 
every  other  state  as  in  the  state  to  which  the  slave 
escaped,  and  in  which  he  was  held  to  service  or  labor; " 
and  that  "  any  state  law  that  interrupts ,  limits^  delays, 
and  postpones  the  right  of  the  owner  to  the  immediate 
25 


290  DESPOTISM 

possession  of  his  slave,  or  the  immediate  command  of 
his  services,  operating  pro  tanto  as  a  discharge,  is  un 
constitutional."  Whence  it  would  follow,  that  a  Vir 
ginia  slave-holder  has  the  right,  not  only  to  recapture 
his  runaway  slave  in  Massachusetts,  but,  if  he  pleases, 
there  to  beat,  work,  imprison,  or  starve  him,  at  his 
pleasure,  short  of  immediate  death,  (even  the  statute 
against  cruelty  to  animals  being  unconstitutional  as 
to  him)  ;  and,  if  the  slave  be  a  woman,  of  compelling 
her  to  share  his  bed  as  his  concubine, — all  of  which 
are  "  incidents  "  in  Virginia  to  the  right  of  slave-hold 
ing  ; — and  to  continue  to  enjoy  these  incidents  for  any 
period  that  he  may  choose  to  remain  in  Massachusetts. 
Some  such  rights  have  been  claimed,  indeed,  by  some 
of  the  slave-holders  as  appertaining  to  them  in  the 
territories  ;  but  never  yet,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  any 
of  them  pretended,  under  any  circumstances,  to  any 
such  rights  within  the  limits  of  a  free  state.  Even 
the  claimants  of  fugitive  slaves  have  been  too  modest 
and  forbearing  to  attempt  any  thing  of  the  sort,  not 
withstanding  this  high  judicial  warrant  for  doing  so. 

But  not  content  with  thus  giving  to  the  master  of  a 
fugitive  slave,  found  within  the  limits  of  a  free  state, 
all  the  rights,  including  the  right  of  recapture  without 
warrant,  which  he  would  have  had  at  home,  Story, 
with  some  other  judges,  (McLean  now  supplying  the 
place  of  Baldwin,  who  dissented,)  goes  on  to  hold,  not 
only  to  the  right,  but  to  the  imperative  duty,  of  Con 
gress  to  reenforce  this  constitutional  provision  by  special 
legislation.  The  master  "  may  not  be  able  to  lay  his 
hand  upon  the  slave.  He  may  not  be  able  to  enforce 
his  rights  against  persons  who  either  secrete,  or  conceal, 
or  withhold  the  slave.  He  may  be  restricted,  by  local 
legislation,  as  to  the  modes  of  proofs  of  his  ownership, 
as  to  the  courts  in  which  he  shall  sue,  and  as  to  the 
actions  which  he  may  bring,  or  the  process  he  may 
use  to  compel  the  delivery  of  the  slave ;  " — that  is  to 
say,  he  may  be  put  upon  precisely  the  same  level  as 
to  his  remedies  with  other  claimants  of  property  or 
personal  rights,  whether  native  or  foreign.  But  this, 


IN    AMERICA.  291 

according  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
would  be  a  gross  and  intolerable  violation  of  the  pe 
culiar  and  sacred  rights  secured  by  the  constitution  to 
the  owners  of  fugitive  slaves ;  for  the  sustentation  of 
which  rights  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  interfere, 
and,  under  the  judicial  authority  vested  in  the  general 
government,  to  provide,  at  whatever  risk  to  free  cit 
izens  of  non-slave-holding  states,  a  swift  and  certain 
method  of  delivery,  such  as  will  leave  to  fugitive  slaves 
no  possible  chance  of  escape.  The  constitutionality 
of  the  act  of  1793  is  thus  placed  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  upon  the  express  ground 
(Mr.  Webster  and  other  apologists  for  the  act  of  1850 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding)  that  the  surrender 
of  a  fugitive  from  labor  is,  "  in  the  strictest  sense,  a 
controversy  between  the  parties,  and  a  case,  under  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  within  the  express 
delegation  of  judicial  power,  given  by  that  instrument." 
As  to  the  objection  that  the  justices  of  the  peace  and 
other  state  magistrates  in  whom  the  authority  to  grant 
certificates  is  concurrently  vested  are  state  officers,  the 
court  hastily  pass  by  that,  with  the  suggestion,  that 
though  not  bound  to  exercise  this  jurisdiction,  still 
they  may  do  so,  as  long  as  the  states  do  not  pro 
hibit  them.  But  suppose  this  assertion  to  be  consist 
ent  (which  it  hardly  seems  to  be)  with  the  doctrine  so 
peremptorily  laid  down  in  Martin  v.  Hunter's  Lessee, 
or  supposing  this  new  doctrine  to  be  the  better  law, 
which  must  be  esteemed  very  doubtful,  still  it  does 
not  touch  the  other  and  unanswerable  objections  of 
want  of  proper  tenure  and  salary. 

We  come  now  to  another  point  of  the  case,  in 
which  there  was  less  unanimity.  Story,  Wayne, 
McKinley,  and  Catron  held — and  on  this  point  they 
Were  again  supported  by  McLean,  thus  still  making 
a  majority  of  the  court — that  not  only  was  it  the  duty 
as  well  as  right  of  Congress  to  enforce  by  legislation 
the  surrender  of  fugitives  from  labor,  but  that  the  right 
to  legislate  on  this  subject  was  vested  exclusively  in 
Congress.  It  was  this  point  doubtless  that  chiefly 


292  DESPOTISM 

recommended  the  decision  of  the  court  to  Story.  Not 
only  did  it  gratify  his  ultra  Federal  ideas,  in  which, 
though  raised  to  the  bench  as  a  JefFersonian  Democrat, 
he  far  outran  those  eminent  Federalists,  Chief  Justices 
Marshall  and  Taney,  but  it  seemed  to  him,  as  he 
afterwards  boasted  in  private  conversation,  to  strike  a 
deadly  blow  at  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves,  by 
relieving  the  states  from  all  obligation  to  cooperate 
in  it.  Of  the  four  judges  who  went  with  Story  on 
this  point,  three  were  from  slave-holding  circuits  ;  but 
as  those  circuits  were  remote  from  the  frontier,  they 
did  not  feel  the  immediate  smart  either  of  having  lost 
slaves  themselves,  or  of  sympathy  with  friends  and 
neighbors  who  had.  Taney  and  Daniel  were  differently 
situated,  and  these  two  border  judges,  supported  by 
Thompson,  whom  the  instinct  and  habit  of  servitude 
naturally  carried  along  with  them,  protested  with  all 
their  might  against  the  decision  of  the  majority. 
They  agreed,  indeed,  with  Story  and  the  others, — for 
Baldwin  also  went  to  this  extent, — that  the  states  were 
prohibited  from  passing  any  special  laws  that  might 
in  any  way  conflict  with  the  most  summary  recovery 
of  fugitive  slaves  ;  but  they  insisted  also  (see  Taney's 
opinion,  p.  627,)  that  the  constitution  enjoined  it  as 
a  duty,  no  less  upon  the  states  than  upon  Congress, 
"to  protect  and  support  the  owner  while  endeavoring 
to  obtain  the  possession  of  his  property."  That  is  to 
say,  while  the  states  were  prohibited  by  the  Federal 
constitution  from  affording  the  least  protection  to 
their  own  citizens,  seized  by  kidnappers  under  pretence 
of  being  fugitives  from  labor,  at  the  same  time  they 
were  bound  to  afford  all  possible  aid  to  slave-owners, 
even  at  the  imminent  risk  of  facilitating  kidnapping! 
Such  is  another  of  the  absurd  consequences,  of  which 
this  case  is  so  full,  to  which  false  assumptions  in 
evitably  lead,  in  legal  no  less  than  in  mathematical 
reasoning.  It  were  well  that  lawyers  and  judges 
were  as  sensible  as  mathematicians  to  the  logical 
effects  of  a  reductio  ad  absurdum. 

Baldwin,    assenting   to    the     constitutional    right 


IN    AMERICA.  293 

maintained  by  all  the  judges  except  McLean,  of  re 
caption  and  removal  without  warrant,  notwithstand 
ing  special  state  laws  to  the  contrary,  concurred  in  the 
judgment  of  the  court  because  it  was  admitted  that 
the  woman  carried  off  was  Prigg's  slave.  He  also  ad 
mitted,  that  if  any  special  legislation  on  the  subject 
were  needed,  Congress  alone  could  so  legislate.  But  he 
held  such  legislation  unnecessary,  and  therefore  uncon 
stitutional,  thus  seeming  to  come  up  very  nearly,  if  not 
quite, — for  we  have  no  detailed  statement  of  his  views, 
— to  the  doctrine  maintained  in  this  section.  Baldwin 
was  a  lawyer,  and  a  very  able  one ;  nor  is  his  author 
ity  to  be  set  aside  on  the  ground  of  any  anti-slavery 
leanings.  His  antecedents  have  been  already  alluded 
to,  as  indeed  they  were  by  himself,  in  his  opinion 
delivered  only  a  year  before,  in  the  case  already  men 
tioned  of  Graves  v.  Slaughter, — an  opinion  in  which 
he  went  far  beyond  any  of  the  court  in  maintaining 
that  the  Federal  constitution  recognizes  slaves  as 
property  as  much  as  a  bale  of  cotton  ;  and  that,  as 
such,  gangs  of  slaves  might  be  driven  to  market 
through  intervening  free  states.  He  had  also,  on  the 
same  occasion,  attacked,  with  no  little  acrimony,  the 
idea  set  up  by  McLean,  and  seemingly  countenanced 
by  some  of  the  other  judges,  that  the  constitution 
regards  slaves  not  as  property,  but  only  as  persons, 
denouncing  it  as  the  first  step  in  a  career  of  doctrine 
certain  to  prove  fatal  to  the  whole  slave-holding 
system. 

McLean  agreed  with  the  other  judges,  that  the  act 
of  1793  was  constitutional,  and  that  the  states  had 
no  right  to  legislate  specially  on  the  subject  of  the 
surrender  of  fugitive  slaves.  But  he  differed  from 
them  in  maintaining,  1st.  That  Congress  had  aright, 
in  certain  cases,  to  impose  duties  on  state  officers  and 
tribunals,  and  that  this  matter  of  the  surrender  of 
fugitives  from  labor  was  one  of  those  cases ;  and  2d. 
That  the  states,  under  their  acknowledged  police 
power,  had  a  right  to  preserve  their  own  peace,  and 
to  protect  the  rights  of  their  citizens,  by  prohibiting 
25* 


294  DESPOTISM 

the  removal  of  fugitives  from  justice,  except  under  a 
certificate  granted  in  conformity  to  the  act  of  Con 
gress.  This  view  he  ingeniously  supported  by  re 
ferring  to  the  act  of  1793,  which  required,  in  express 
terms,  that  all  persons  arrested  as  fugitives  from  labor 
should  be  taken  before  a  magistrate,  and  a  certificate 
obtained  in  order  to  their  removal ;  nor,  indeed, 
would  it  have  been  possible  for  his  colleagues  to  have 
answered  him  on  this  point,  except  by  denouncing 
that  portion,  at  least,  of  the  act  of  1793  as  unconsti 
tutional. 

Three  general  remarks  may  be  made  upon  the 
opinions  delivered  in  this  case.  1st.  Forgetting  the 
chariness  of  the  constitution  and  of  the  act  of  1793, 
as  to  the  use  of  such  shameful  terms  as  slaves  and 
slavery, — a  decorum  observed  even  by  the  act  of  1850, 
— the  judges,  in  their  opinions,  blurt  out  these  obscene 
words,  which  ought  to  raise  a  blush  on  the  cheek  of 
every  true  man,  at  least  of  every  judge,  in  a  nation 
whose  government  is  based  upon  the  declaration  that 
all  men  are  born  free,  with  a  frequency  that  seems 
almost  affected,  as  if,  like  strumpets,  desirous  to  show 
how  brazen  they  had  grown.  2d.  While  the  right 
of  the  slave-holder  to  his  fugitive  slave  is  urged  with 
a  vivacity  which  could  not  be  exceeded,  had.  the  sur 
render  of  fugitive  slaves  been  the  sole  end  and  aim 
of  the  constitution,  not  one  word  is  dropped,  except 
cursorily,  in  the  opinion  of  McLean,  about  the  dangers 
from  kidnappers  and  false  claimants,  or  about  the 
duty  of  protecting,  against  the  terrible  fate  of  slavery, 
native  citizens,  and  even  fugitives  from  labor,  claimed 
by  scoundrels  having  no  title  to  their  services.  3d.  It 
is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  not  one  of  the  judges 
made  the  slightest  allusion  to  the  child  born  in  Penn 
sylvania,  and  free  according  to  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  that  state,  but  carried  off  into 
slavery  along  with  its  mother.  The  state  law  might 
be  inefficacious  in  the  case  of  a  person  admitted  to 
be  a  slave,  but  was  it  also  void  in  its  application  to  a 
native-born  citizen  of  the  state,  seized  and  carried  off 


IN    AMERICA.  295 

into  slavery  without  any  title  or  legal  warrant?  Per 
haps  on  the  principle  de  minimis  non  curat  lex, — the 
law  does  not  concern  itself  with  trifles, — the  kidnapping 
a  negro  child  was  thought  to  be  too  insignificant  a 
matter  to  engage  the  attention  of  so  grave  a  tribunal. 
Or  are  we  to  understand  the  court  as  reversing,  by  silent 
implication,  the  doctrine  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  holding  that  the  children  of  fugi 
tive  slaves,  whenever  and  at  whatever  period  born,  are 
also  slaves  ? 

There  is  still  one  other  extremely  important  obser 
vation  to  be  made  upon  this  case.  The  point  brought 
directly  to  the  notice  of  the  court  was,  the  validity 
of  a  special  law  of  Pennsylvania,  in  relation  to  fugi 
tives  from  labor  coming  within  her  limits  from  other 
states.  This  special  legislation  the  court  held  to  be 
void,  and,  it  would  seern,  soundly  enough,  whatever 
we  may  think  of  some  of  the  grounds  and  reasons  on 
which  they  based  their  decision.  But,  except  by  the 
sweeping,  yet  very  nebulous  and  unsubstantial  tails 
of  some  extravagant  generalities  the  practical  appli 
cation  of  which  the  court  itself,  it  may  reasonably 
be  supposed,  would  be  inclined  to  contract  within 
some  defensible  limits,  the  case  of  Prigg-  v.  Pennsyl 
vania  does  not  touch,  it  does  not  even  evince  the 
least  consciousness  of  the  vastly  more  important 
questions  upon  which,  according  to  the  views  main 
tained  in  this  section,  all  rights  and  duties,  existing 
under  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  the 
case  of  fugitives  from  labor,  must  depend  ;  the  ques 
tions,  namely,  1st,  of  the  right  of  the  states  to  regu 
late,  by  general  laws,  the  procedure  to  be  adopted,  in 
all  cases,  for  reclaiming,  within  their  limits,  actual 
control  over  the  persons  of  others  by  parties  who 
possess  the  legal  right  of  control ;  and  2d,  of  the  neces 
sity  that  citizens  of  other  states  should  be  satisfied 
with  being  placed,  in  this  respect,  on  a  level  with 
resident  and  native  citizens.  These  are  points  as  yet 
unadjudged  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  or  by  any  state  court,  except  that  of  Penn- 


296  DESPOTISM 

sylvania,  in  the  unfortunate  case  of  Wright  v.  Deacon, 
already  sufficiently  criticized. 

The  decision  of  the  case  of  Prigg*  v.  Pennsylvania 
failed  to  give  satisfaction  any  where.  Every  where  it 
was  greeted  with  mingled  groans  and  hisses ;  in  the 
North,  as  a  timid  and  disgraceful  surrender  of  the 
rights  of  the  free  states,  and  of  the  plainest  principles 
of  common  justice ;  in  the  South  as  not  having  gone 
half  far  enough.  The  free  states  very  generally  re 
sponded  to  it,  not  by  repealing  the  statutes  which  this 
decision  declared  void,  but  by  new  laws,  forbidding 
their  officers  or  magistrates  to  act  under  the  statute 
of  1793,  or  their  jails  to  be  employed  for  the  detention 
of  fugitives.  Mr.  Webster,  in  his  Newburyport  let 
ter,  stigmatizes  this  latter  prohibition,  as  putting  a 
serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  trial  by  jury,  in  the 
case  of  alleged  fugitives  from,  labor.  Lame  apology 
for  his  abandonment  of  his  own  bill,  since  the  mar 
shals  of  the  United  States  are  amply  authorized,  by 
a  joint  resolution  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  to  pro 
vide,  in  all  cases  where  the  states  refuse  the  use  of 
their  jails  to  the  Federal  authorities,  other  safe  places 
for  the  custody  of  their  prisoners,  under  which  provis 
ion,  have  we  not  seen  the  very  court  house  of  the 
city  of  Boston  converted  into  a  slave  jail,  and  by  the 
order  of  the  city  authorities,  surrounded  by  chains, 
under  which  even  the  state  judges  were  obliged  to 
stoop,  some  of  them,  indeed,  seeming  even  to  make  a 
merit  of  their  alacrity  in  doing  so  ?  Nor  is  it  true,  as 
Mr.  Webster  seems  to  insinuate,  that  this  refusal  of 
the  use  of  state  jails  was  one  of  the  devices  of  the 
treasonable  abolitionists.  So  far  from  it,  it  was  first 
brought  into  use  by  that  good  Federalist,  Governor 
Strong,  so  highly  eulogized  by  Mr.  Webster  in  this 
very  same  Newburyport  letter,  in  conjunction  with 
the  legislature  of  the  Federal  and  patriotic  state  of 
Massachusetts,  and  with  the  full  approbation,  if  we 
mistake  riot,  of  Mr.  Webster  himself.  The  occasion 
was  the  attempt  of  President  Madison,  of  which 
the  Federalists  did  not  approve,  to  compel  the  British 


IN    AMERICA.  297 

government,  by  retaliations,  to  relinquish  their  scheme 
of  treating  as  deserters  the  natives  of  Ireland  cap 
tured  in  the  American  ranks,  by  shuting  up  in  the  state 
jails  certain  British  officers,  prisoners  of  war,  with 
the  prospect  of  death  before  them,  should  Great 
Britain  set  the  example.  Afterwards,  in  the  war, 
almost,  which  sprung  up  in  the  Western  States,  about 
the  years  1820-1,  against  the  second  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  a  like  expedient  was  resorted  to  by  the 
state  of  Ohio,  by  refusing  the  use  of  its  jails  for  the 
confinement  of  prisoners,  in  all  cases  in  which  that 
bank  was  concerned ;  and  it  was  upon  that  occasion 
that  the  joint  resolution  above  referred  to  was  adopted. 
Upon  the  present  occasion,  also,  Congress  attempted 
to  meet  the  legislation  of  the  states  by  an  act,  passed 
in  1845,  extending  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Circuit  Court 
commissioners,  as  well  to  the  cases  of  fugitives  from 
labor,  as  to  the  closely  related  one  of  deserting  sea 
men.  But  for  all  this,  fugitives  from  servitude  rapidly 
increased,  and  reclamations  of  them  were  attended 
with  more  and  more  difficulty.  Every  where  in  the 
free  states  they  received  aid  and  comfort,  at  least  to 
the  extent  of  a  cup  of  cold  water,  a  crust  of  bread, 
and  a  barn  to  sleep  in.  Many  of  them  turned  lec 
turers,  and,  travelling  from  village  to  village,  revealed 
the  secrets  of  the  prison-house  in  artless  and  homely 
appeals  to  the  natural  sympathies  of  the  human  heart, 
which  washed  away,  in  trickling  tears,  all  the  studied 
and  specious  sophistries  of  the  most  learned  and  elo 
quent  advocates  of  despotism.  The  South  became 
more  exasperated  than  ever.  Those  who  had  lived 
and  grown  famous  by  defending  and  expounding  the 
constitution,  hoping,  at  least,  to  levy  new  contribu 
tions,  if  not  to  mount  to  high  office  in  the  midst  of  the 
panic,  raised  anew  the  cry  of  "  The  Union  in  danger ; " 
and  never  did  the  old  English  Tory  cry  of  "  The 
church  in  danger"  drive  both  clergymen  and  laymen 
into  greater  follies.  Such  were  the  circumstances 
under  which,  by  the  aid  of  half  a  dozen  or  more  con 
gressional  northern  candidates  for  the  presidency,  the 


298  DESPOTISM 

act  of  1850  was  passed;  an  act  which  adopts,  in  express 
terms,  all  the  judicial  extravagances,  based  on  the 
constitutional  clause  respecting  fugitives  from  labor 
and  the  act  of  1793,  adding,  besides,  others  of  its  own  ; 
an  act  breathing,  in  every  line,  that  disregard  of  all 
right,  except  the  right  of  the  strongest,  upon  which 
the  system  of  slavery  is  founded,  and  most  character 
istically  forced  through  the  House  of  Representatives, 
without  the  allowance  of  any  debate  upon  it.  Omit 
ting  the  numerous  other  objections  which  have  made 
that  despotic  enactment  of  a  professedly  democratic 
legislature  a  finger-post  for  the  scorn  of  all  the  world, 
it  has  b&9n  enough  for  the  present  purpose  to  point 
out  the  particulars  in  which  it  directly  conflicts  with 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  opinions 
of  some  Federal  judges,  confidently  pronounced,  and 
even  ostentatiously  volunteered,  may  affect  to  make 
light  of  these  objections.  They  may  even  be  slurred 
over  and  evaded  by  some  state  courts  from  whom 
better  things  might  have  been  expected.  But  they 
have  not  been  answered,  nor  obviated ;  and,  like  the 
drops  of  blood  on  the  hands  of  the  murderer,  however 
muffled  and  hidden,  for  the  present,  under  the  judicial 
ermine,  they  still  bear  that  silent  but  indestructible 
testimony  which  will  one  day  bring  the  guilty  to 
due  punishment. 

There  is  no  more  admirable  chapter  in  Gibbon  than 
that  in  which  he  has  given  a  condensed  but  compre 
hensive  sketch  of  the  Roman  jurisprudence, — a  chap 
ter  which  goes  far  to  show,  that  an  historian,  accus 
tomed  to  generalize,  and  to  view  things  in  the  whole 
as  well  as  by  piecemeal,  may  have  clearer  apprehen 
sions  of  a  system  of  laws  than  were  unitedly  pos 
sessed  by  scores  and  hundreds  of  laborious  and  erudite 
jurists,  who  had  made  those  same  laws  the  sole  study 
of  their  lives,  but  who  had  still  no  conception  of  them, 
except  in  detail. 

After  a  humorous  description  of  some  of  the  formali 
ties,  the  knowledge  of  which  was  confined  to  the  early 


IN    AMERICA.  299 

Roman  lawyers,  and  which  continued  to  be  observed 
long  after  their  origin  and  meaning  were  forgotten, 
and  even  after  the  lawyers  themselves  had  learned 
to  laugh  at  them,  Gibbon  proceeds  as  follows  : — 
"  A  more  liberal  art  was  cultivated,  however,  by  the 
sages  of  Rome,  who,  in  a  stricter  sense,  may  be  con 
sidered  as  the  authors  of  the  civil  law.  The  alteration 
of  the  idiom  and  manners  of  the  Romans  rendered 
the  style  of  the  Twelve  Tables  less  familiar  to  each 
rising  generation,  and  the  doubtful  passages  were 
imperfectly  explained  by  the  study  of  legal  anti 
quarians.  To  define  the  ambiguities,  to  circumscribe 
the  latitude,  to  apply  the  principles,  to  extend  the 
consequences,  to  reconcile  the  real  or  apparent  con 
tradictions,  was  a  much  nobler  and  more  important 
task,  and  the  province  of  legislation  was  silently 
invaded  by  the  expounders  of  ancient  statutes.  Their 
subtle  interpretations  concurred  with  the  equity  of  the 
prastor  to  reform  the  tyranny  of  the  darker  ages  : 
however  strange  or  intricate  the  means,  it  was  the 
aim  of  artificial  jurisprudence  to  restore  the  simple 
dictates  of  nature  and  reason,  and  the  skill  of  private 
citizens  was  usefully  employed  to  undermine  the  pub 
lic  institutions  of  their  country." 

The  precise  and  simple  truth  can  seldom  be  ex 
pressed  in  epigrams.  The  last  clause  of  this  in 
structive  quotation  is  liable  to  a  criticism  which  Gib 
bon's  sparkling  phraseology  somewhat  too  frequently 
extorts, — that  of  sacrificing  to  rhetorical  point.  To 
remove  the  rotten  materials  which  ignorance,  thought 
lessness,  or  the  prevailing  interest  of  the  moment  had 
incorporated,  substituting  for  them  "  the  simple  dic 
tates  of  nature  and  reason,"  can  hardly,  with  any 
justice,  be  said  to  be  an  undermining  of  the  institu 
tions  of  one's  country,  since  institutions  thus  piously 
repaired,  may  stand  forever,  instead  of  being  left,  by 
the  failure  of  rotten  supports,  to  fall  by  their  own 
weight.  But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  justice 
of  this  criticism,  the  leading  American  lawyers  and 
courts  of  this  present  generation  seem  determined 


300  DESPOTISM 

that  no  future  Gibbon  shall  bring  any  similar  charge 
against  them.  Assuming  and  conscientiously  believ 
ing,  as  no  doubt  all  of  them  who  have  consciences 
do, — though  conscience  is  not  commonly  regarded 
as  indispensable  to  a  "  consummate  lawyer," — that 
slavery  is  one  of  "  the  public  institutions  of  their 
country,"  guaranteed  and  endorsed  by  the  Federal 
constitution,  so  far  from  imitating  the  example  of  the 
Roman  lawyers,  all  their  skill  and  subtlety  is  em 
ployed,  not  in  reforming  the  tyranny  of  darker  ages, 
but  in  twisting  new  whips  and  forging  new  fetters,  to 
perpetuate  that  tyranny  to  the  latest  times,  and  to 
diffuse  it  over  the  whole  face  of  the  country.  What 
I  have  written  on  the  subject  of  the  legal  basis  of 
slavery,  I  have  not  written  with  the  least  expectation 
of  producing  any  effect  upon  lawyers  or  judges  already 
committed  to  different  views ;  or,  indeed,  upon  any 
lawyer  more  than  forty  years  of  age.  Harvey  did 
not  convert  a  single  physician  above  that  age  to  his 
view  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  ;  and  as  to  new 
views,  whether  true  or  false,  lawyers  and  doctors,  for 
obvious  reasons,  are  very  much  alike. 

At  the  present  day,  however,  especially  in  America, 
the  current  of  public  opinion  sets  strongly  in  favor 
of  personal  freedom ;  and  to  attempt,  whether  by 
legislative  or  juridical  devices,  to  dam  up  and  stop 
short  any  current  of  public  opinion,  is  a  very  hazardous 
thing.  The  experiment  may  seem  to  succeed  for  a 
moment.  It  may  answer  sufficiently  well  where  only 
a  temporary  object  is  to  be  accomplished.  The  rush 
ing  waters  of  refreshment  and  fertility  may  be  stayed. 
The  black  and  sharp  rocks  may  be  laid  bare,  and 
industrious  political  fishermen  may  take  much  fish  in 
the  pools.  But  presently,  when  least  expected,  and 
without  a  moment's  warning,  the  obstruction  gives 
way  before  the  still  and  silently  rising  water,  which 
sweeps  off  dam,  fishermen,  every  thing  in  the  way  to 
inevitable  destruction;  a  destruction  which  over 
whelms,  also,  many  innocent  dwellers  on  the  river's 
bank,  who,  though  they  foresaw  and  remonstrated, 


IN    AMERICA.  301 

had  not  been  able  to  prevent  the  disaster.  Such 
indeed  is  the  catastrophe,  as  inevitable  as  it  is  for 
midable,  with  which  we  are  threatened  at  the  present 
moment.  The  dam  has  been  building  this  twenty 
years  or  more.  The  accumulating  waters  must  and 
will  come  down.  To  discover  the  means  so  to  guide 
them  that  the  evil  of  slavery  may  be  swept  away  with 
out  leaving  others  behind  it  hardly  less  deplorable,  is  a 
problem  to  which  all  men  of  sense  and  judgment,  whe 
ther  slave-holders  or  non-slave-holders,  ought  forthwith 
to  apply  themselves.  It  is  a  question  that  interests  all 
alike — for,  much  as  we  may  quarrel  among  ourselves, 
and  loudly  as,  like  Adam  and  Eve  over  the  tasted 
apple,  we  may  accuse  and  berate  each  other,  we  are  all 
in  this  matter,  equally  concerned,  equally  unfortunate, 
equally  guilty.  If  the  South  has  been  the  boisterous 
youth  who  solicited,  and  even  demanded,  what  the 
blindness  of  passion  made  him  think  almost  his  right, 
the  North  has  been  the  weak,  willing,  profligate 
maiden,  who  yielded — for  money — what  she  knew  to 
be  wrong.  We  are  all,  slave-holders  and  abolitionists, 
citizens  of  the  same  community  ;  nor  is  it  possible 
for  us  to  denationalize  ourselves.  Our  state  lines  are 
fast  sinking  into  little  more  than  county  lines  ;  even 
the  old  state  rights  Democratic  party  has  adopted  the 
cry  of — The  Republic  one  and  indivisible !  We  are 
all  in  the  same  ship,  and  must  sink  or  swim  together. 
We  are  slave-holders  or  abolitionists,  not  because  we 
differ  much  either  in  moral  character  or  intellectual 
capacity,  either  in  sentiment  or  opinion,  but  mainly 
from  differences  of  social  and  topographical  position. 
So  completely  alike,  in  all  fundamental  points,  are 
some  of  our  most  ardent  abolitionists  and  some  of 
the  boldest  of  our  southern  defenders  of  slavery,  that 
if  they  could,  in  a  night,  be  made  to  change  places, 
the  one  finding  himself  in  possession  of  a  cotton 
plantation  and  a  hundred  slaves,  and  the  other  the 
editor  of  a  northern  abolitionist  newspaper,  with  a 
tolerable  prospect  of  going  to  Congress  on  that  in 
terest, — and  supposing,  also,  the  memory  of  past  com- 
26 


302  DESPOTISM 

mitments  to  be  at  the  same  time  obliterated, — there 
is  nothing  whatever  in  their  moral  or  intellectual  con 
stitution  which  would  prevent  them  from  exactly  and 
most  conscientiously  filling  up  each  other's  present 
places.  To  the  common  eye,  the  moon  appears,  ac 
cording  to  the  relative  position  of  the  object  and  the 
observer,  a  disc  of  light,  or  an  absolute  non-existence. 
It  is  only  to  the  philosopher  that  the  new  moon  and  the 
full  moon  are  the  same  thing.  But  in  the  present 
age,  we  are  all  growing  to  be  philosophers,  and  differ 
ence  of  position  cannot  long  stand  out  against  coin 
cidence  of  intellect  and  sentiment.  The  abolition  of 
slavery  is  the  great  work  of  the  generation  now  in 
being.  What  thoughtful  man  doubts  it?  Mr.  Calhoun 
certainly  did  not.  Our  Revolutionary  Fathers  did 
what  they  could.  Peace  to  their  ashes  and  honor  to 
their  memory,  spite  of  the  diatribes  of  those  content 
with  nothing  short  of  every  thing!  The  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  Northern  States,  wretchedly  and 
inefficiently  as  that  matter  was  managed ;  its  exclu 
sion  from  the  great  North  West;  and  the  abolition 
of  the  African  slave-trade,  were  things  great  in  them 
selves,  and  in  their  consequences  mighty.  Who  can 
doubt  that,  if  slavery  had  not  been  abolished  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  some  wealthy  Boston  supporters  of  the 
law  of  1850  would  be,  at  this  moment,  exhibiting 
their  attachment  to  the  Union  by  filling  their  houses, 
perhaps  their  cotton  factories,  with  slaves  purchased 
in  the  South  ?  Who  can  doubt  that,  if  the  African 
slave-trade  had  not  been  abolished  as  seasonably  as  it 
was,  negroes,  freshly  imported  from  Africa,  would  be 
now  selling  in  the  New  Orleans  market  for  a  hundred 
dollars  a  head  ?  And  what  hope  would  there  be  for 
liberty,  were  the  fertile  states  of  the  North  West  now 
cultivated,  as,  but  for  the  ordinance  of  1787,  they 
would  have  been,  by  servile  hands,  not  servile  by  con 
sent,  but  servile  by  compulsion  ? 

The  abolition  of  slavery  was  desired,  for  their  own 
states,  by  all  the  more  intelligent  citizens  of  Mary 
land  and  Virginia,  even  more  ardently  than  any  where 


IN    AMERICA.  303 

at  the  North ;  but  they  had  neither  the  courage  nor 
the  means  to  overcome  the  mountains  of  ignorance, 
prejudice,  and  interest  which  rose  up  before  them. 
They  were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  repeat 
ing,  after  Lord  Bacon,  "  Time  is  the  greatest  innova 
tor,"  and  with  hoping  from  their  children  what  they 
could  not  accomplish  themselves.  But  the  result  has 
only  served  to  confirm  the  philosophy  of  Lord  Bacon, 
whose  mention  of  Time  as  the  great  innovator  is  so 
generally  quoted  in  a  sense  totally  different  from  that  in 
which  he  uttered  it.  "  Surely,"  he  says,  "  every  new 
medicine  is  an  innovation ;  and  he  that  refuses  new 
remedies  must  expect  new  evils ;  for  Time  is  the  great 
est  innovator ;  and  if  Time  alter  all  things  to  the 
worse,  and  wisdom  and  council  alter  them  not  to  the 
better,  WHAT  SHALL  BE  THE  END  ?  " 

A  pregnant  question  truly.  What  shall  be  the  end  ? 
— a  question  the  answer  to  which  must  make  a  part 
of  An  Inquiry  into  the  Feasibility,  Expediency,  and 
Necessity  of  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  with  Outlines  of  a  Practical  Plan 
for  its  Accomplishment — a  second  treatise  to  which 
the  present  one  is  intended  as  an  introduction. 


APPENDIX. 


IN  confirmation  of  the  statement  contained  in  the  text,  I  give 
here  some  extracts  from  Mr.  Webster's  too  famous  7th  of  March 
speech,  (1850.)  It  has  been  attempted  to  glorify  this  speech  by 
giving  to  it  the  title  "For  the  Constitution  and  the  Union."  Less 
grandiloquently,  perhaps,  but  quite  as  truthfully,  it  might  have 
been  entitled  "  A  job  for  the  presidential  chair."  As  if  to  magnify 
the  sacrifice  he  was  about  to  make  to  the  slave-holding  Moloch, 
the  orator  prefaces  his  declaration  of  adhesion  to  the  fugitive  bill 
of  1850,  "with  all  its  provisions  to  the  fullest  extent,"  by  some 
historical  statements,  such  as  might  rather  have  justified  an  indig 
nant  opposition  to  that  disgraceful  piece  of  slave-holding  legisla 
tion,  and  which  even  gives  color  to  the  conjecture  that  a  large  part 
of  that  famous  speech  was  prepared  before  Mr.  Webster  had  quite 
made  up  his  mind  to  barter  away  his  voice,  and  vote,  and  perma 
nent  reputation  for  the  chance  of  southern  votes  in  the  presidential 
caucus. 

*'  Let  us  consider  for  a  moment,"  says  Mr.  Webster,  "  what  was 
the  state  of  sentiment  north  and  south  in  regard  to  slavery  at  the 
time  when  this  constitution  was  adopted.  A  remarkable  change 
has  taken  place  since ;  but  what  did  the  wise  and  great  men  of 
all  parts  of  the  country  think  of  slavery  then  ?  In  what  estimation 
did  they  hold  it  at  the  time  when  this  constitution  was  adopted  ? 
It  will  be  found,  sir,  if  we  carry  ourselves  by  historical  research 
back  to  that  day,  and  ascertain  men's  opinions  by  authentic  rec 
ords  still  existing  among  us,  that  there  was  then  no  diversity  of 
opinion  between  the  North  and  the  South  on  the  subject  of  sla 
very.  [This  is  rather  overstating  the  matter.  There  was  at  the 
time  of  the  convention,  and  in  the  convention,  a  zealous  pro-slavery 
party,  but  it  consisted  exclusively  of  citizens  of  Georgia  and 
the  Carolinas.]  It  will  be  found  that  both  parts  of  the  country 
held  it  equally  an  evil,  a  moral  and  political  evil.  It  will  not  be 
found  that  either  at  the  North  or  the  South  there  was  much, 
though  there  was  some,  invective  against  slavery  as  inhuman  and 
cruel.  The  great  ground  of  objection  to  it  was  political ;  that  it 
weakened  the  social  fabric  ;  that,  taking  the  place  of  free  labor, 
society  became  less  strong,  and  labor  less  productive  ;  and  there 
fore  we  find,  from  all  the  eminent  men  of  the  time,  the  clearest 

(304) 


APPENDIX.  305 

expression  of  their  opinion  that  slavery  is  an  evil.  .  .  .  The 
eminent  men,  the  most  eminent  men,  and  nearly  all  the  conspic 
uous  politicians  of  the  South,  held  the  same  sentiments  ;  that 
slavery  was  an  evil,  a  blight,  a  scourge,  and  a  curse.  There  were 
no  terms  of  reprobation  of  slavery  so  vehement,  in  the  North  at 
that  day,  as  in  the  South.  The  North  was  not  so  much  excited 
against  it  as  the  South,  and  the  reason  is,  I  suppose,  that  there 
was  much  less  of  it  at  the  North,  and  the  people  did  not  see,  or 
think  they  saw,  the  evils  so  prominently  as  they  were  seen,  or 
thought  to  be  seen,  at  the  South. 

"  Then,  sir,  when  this  constitution  was  framed,  this  was  the  light 
in  which  the  Federal  convention  viewed  it,  [i.  e.  slavery].  That 
body  reflected  the  judgment  and  sentiments  of  the  great  men  of  the 
South.  The  question  then  was,  how  to  deal  with  it,  and  how  to  deal 
with  it  as  an  evil.  They  came  to  this  general  result.  They  thought 
that  slavery  could  not  be  continued  in  the  country,  if  the  importation 
of  slaves  were  made  to  cease ;  and,  therefore,  they  provided  that,  after 
a  certain  period,  the  importation  might  be  prevented  by  the  act  of  the 
new  government.  ...  It  may  not  be  improper  here  to  allude  to 
that,  I  had  almost  said,  celebrated  opinion  of  Mr.  Madison.  You  ob 
serve,  sir,  that  the  term  slave,  or  slavery,  is  not  used  in  the  constitution. 
The  constitution  does  not  require  that  '  fugitive  slaves'  shall  be  de 
livered  up.  It  requires  that  persons  held  to  service  in  one  state, 
and  escaping  into  another,  shall  be  delivered  up.  Mr.  Madison 
opposed  the  introduction  of  the  term  slave,  or  slavery,  into  the  con 
stitution  ;  for  he  said  that  he  did  not  wish  to  see  it  recognized  by 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States  of  America,  that  there  could 
be  property  in  men. 

"Now,  sir,  all  this  took  place  in  the  convention  of  1787;  but, 
connected  with  this,  concurrent  and  contemporaneous,  is  another 
important  transaction,  not  sufficiently  attended  to.  The  convention 
for  framing  this  constitution  assembled  in  Philadelphia  in  May, 
and  sat  until  September,  1787.  During  all  that  time,  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  was  in  session  in  New  York.  ...  At 
the  very  time  when  the  convention  in  Philadelphia  was  framing 
this  constitution,  the  Congress  in  New  York  was  framing  the  ordi 
nance  of  1787  for  the  organization  and  government  of  the  territory 
north-west  of  the  Ohio.  They  passed  that  ordinance  on  the  13th 
of  July,  1787,  at  New  York,  the  very  month,  perhaps  the  very  day, 
on  which  these  questions  about  the  importation  of  slaves  and  the 
character  of  slavery  were  debated  in  the  convention  at  Philadelphia. 
So  far  as  we  can  now  learn,  there  was  a  perfect  concurrence  of 
opinion  between  these  two  bodies  ;  and  it  resulted  in  this  ordinance 
of  ]787,  excluding  slavery  from  all  the  territory  over  which  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  had  jurisdiction.  .  .  .  Three 
things  are  quite  clear,  as  historical  truths.  One  is,  that  there  was 
an  expectation,  that  on  the  ceasing  of  the  importation  of  slaves  from 
Africa,  slavery  would  begin  to  run  out  here.  That  was  hoped  and 
expected.  Another  is,  that,  as  far  as  there  was  any  power  in 

26* 


306  APPENDIX. 

Congress  to  prevent  the  spread  of  slavery  in  the  United  States, 
that  power  was  executed  in  the  most  absolute  manner,  and  to  the 
fullest  extent.  .  .  .  Why,  there  it  stands  !  The  vote  of  every 
state  in  the  Union  was  unanimous  in  favor  of  the  ordinance,  with 
the  exception  of  a  single  individual  vote,  and  that  individual  vote 
was  given  by  a  northern  man.  This  ordinance,  prohibiting  slavery 
forever  north-west  of  the  Ohio,  has  the  hand  and  seal  of  every 
southern  member  in  Congress.  It  was,  therefore,  no  aggression 
of  the  North  on  the  South.  The  other  and  third  clear  historical 
truth  is,  that  the  convention  meant  to  leave  slavery  in  the  states  as 
they  found  it,  entirely  under  the  authority  and  control  of  the  states 
themselves." 

Yet,  after  all  this  historical  detail,  including  the  emphatic  state 
ment  of  the  care  taken,  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  Madison,  not  to 
admit  into  the  constitution  the  idea  that  there  could  be  property  in 
men,  Mr.  Webster  has  the  inconsistency  to  speak,  in  the  very  next 
paragraph,  of  the  establishment  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  "  with  a  recognition  of  slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  states," 
apparently  intending  to  concede  that  the  Federal  constitution  ex 
pressly  recognized  slavery  as  an  existing  legal  institution  of  the 
states ;  whereas  the  utmost  that  can  be  found  in  it  is  an  obscure 
recognition,  and  that  only  by  implication,  of  the  existence  in  the 
states  of  a  class  of  persons  neither  free  nor  bound  to  service  for  a 
term  of  years,  and  that  a  recognition  of  the  fact  merely,  without 
the  slightest  acknowledgment  of  any  legality  in  it.  But  this  mis 
representation  of  the  constitution  was  essential  to  afford  Mr.  Web 
ster  a  colorable  pretence  for  fishing  after  southern  votes,  with  his 
favorite  bait  of  devotion  to  the  constitution  and  the  Union — a  very 
melancholy  piece  of  fishery,  as  it  proved  on  this  particular  occasion, 
— not  even  resulting  in  a  glorious  nibble.  The  cunning  and  vora 
cious  southern  pike  proved,  indeed,  altogether  too  nimble  and  adroit 
for  a  fisherman  whose  chief  practice  had  been, — and  a  very  suc 
cessful  practice  too — in  catching  northern  gudgeons  with  the  same 
sort  of  bait. 

The  paragraph  above  alluded  to  is  as  follows,  containing,  along 
with  the  treacherous  concession  above  criticized,  and  some  addi 
tional  historical  mistakes,  a  good  deal,  however,  of  wholesome 
truth.  "  This  was  the  state  of  things,  sir,  and  this  the  state  of 
opinion,  under  which  those  very  important  matters  were  arranged, 
and  those  three  important  things  done,  that  is,  the  establishment 
of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  with  a  recognition  of 
slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  states  [this  is  the  admission  criticized 
above] ;  the  establishment  of  the  ordinance  for  the  government  of 
the  North-Western  Territory,  prohibiting,  to  the  full  extent  of  all 
territory  owned  by  the  United  States,  the  introduction  of  slavery 
into  that  territory,  while  leaving  to  the  states  all  power  over  slavery 
in  their  own  limits  ;  and  creating  a  power  in  the  new  government 
to  put  an  end  to  the  importation  of  slaves,  after  a  limited  period. 
There  was  entire  coincidence  and  concurrence  of  sentiment,  between 


APPENDIX. 

the  North  and  the  South,  upon  all  these  questions,  at  the  period  of 
the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  [Mr.  Webster  here  again  ignores 
the  existence,  at  that  time,  of  the  pro-slavery  party  of  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia,  which  has  since  became  predominant  in  the 
Union.]  But  opinions,  sir,  have,  changed,  greatly  changed  ;  changed 
North  and  changed  South.  Slavery  is  not  regarded  in  the  South 
[it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  for 
North  Carolina,  even  then,  was  undetermined  upon  this  point]  now 
as  it  was  then.  .  .  .  What,  then,  have  been  the  causes  which 
have  created  so  new  a  feeling  in  favor  of  slavery  in  the  South, 
which  have  changed  the  whole  nomenclature  of  the  South  on  that 
subject,  so  that,  from  being  thought  of  and  described  in  the  terms 
I  have  mentioned,  and  will  not  repeat,  it  has  now  become  an  institu 
tion,  a  cherished  institution,  in  that  quarter ;  no  evil,  no  scourge, 
but  a  great  religious,  social,  and  moral  blessing,  as  I  think  I  have 
heard  it  lately  spoken  of?  I  suppose  this,  sir,  is  owing  to  the  rapid 
growth  and  sudden  extension  of  the  COTTON  plantations  of  the 
South.  .  .  .  The  age  of  cotton  became  the  golden  age  of  our 
southern  brethren.  It  gratified  their  desire  for  improvement  and 
accumulation,  at  the  same  time  that  it  excited  it.  The  desire  grew 
by  what  it  fed  upon,  and  there  soon  came  to  be  an  eagerness  for 
new  territory,  a  new  area,  or  new  areas,  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
cotton  crop;  and  measures  leading  to  this  result  were  brought 
about  rapidly,  one  after  another,  under  the  lead  of  southern  men  at 
the  head  of  the  government,  they  having  a  majority  in  both  branches 
of  Congress  to  accomplish  their  ends.  The  honorable  member 
from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Calhoun]  observes,  that  there  has  been  a 
majority  all  along  in  favor  of  the  North.  If  that  be  true,  sir,  the 
North  has  acted  either  very  liberally  and  kindly,  or  very  weakly  ;  for 
they  never  exercised  that  majority  efficiently  five  times  in  the 
history  of  the  government,  when  a  division  or  trial  of  strength 
arose.  Never.  Whether  they  were  out-generalled,  or  whether  it 
was  owing  to  other  causes,  I  shall  not  stop  to  consider;  but  no 
man,  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  Union,  can  deny,  that  the 
general  lead  in  the  politics  of  the  country,  for  three  fourths  of  the 
period  that  has  elapsed  since  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  has 
been  a  southern  lead." 

See  "  Speech  of  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  for  the  Constitution 
and  the  Union."  Webster's  Works,  Everett's  edition,  vol.  v.  pp. 
333-339. 

How  lamentable  that,  after  thus  exposing  the  moral  and  political 
weakness  of  the  North,  Mr.  Webster  should  proceed  to  give  a  new, 
and,  if  possible,  still  more  humiliating  instance  of  it,  by  voting  for 
Mason's  unconstitutional  and  atrocious  fugitive  bill ! 

Oh,  what  a  fall  was  there,  my  countrymen ! 
Then  you  and  I  and  all  of  us  fell  down, 
And  bloody  treason  triumphed  over  us. 


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